Coker Biology Students' Diverse Internships

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Hartsville, SC — Internships give college students valuable real world experiences that enhance classroom learning and help define careers. Preparing for their future, several Coker College biology students took advantage of internship opportunities this summer in South Carolina, California and Costa Rica.

Senior Michelle Glover of St. Helena Island worked at the Colleton Medical Center (CMC) in Walterboro, SC. The CMC is a community-based medical facility that provides a broad range of medical services, including numerous diagnostic services, a variety of therapeutic services, and both out- and in- patient surgeries. Under the supervision of CMC administrator David Cope, Glover assisted in the collection and analysis of data required for the strategic planning of the CMC’s orthopedics services.

Cindy Hall, a senior from Hartsville, worked at the Sandhills National Wildlife Refuge in McBee assisting in the research on the endangered red cockaded woodpecker. She also had the opportunity to conduct programs on wildlife for children at the Darlington and Hartsville public libraries.

An internship studying monkeys in Costa Rica kept Katheryn Rayman busy. A senior from Columbia, Rayman conducted independent research on the primate behavior and ecology of white-faced capuchin monkeys (Cebus capucinus) in Costa Rica at La Suerte Biological Field Station. Rayman’s researched focused mainly on the monkeys’ hand use while feeding, foraging, grooming, and tree climbing and jumping.

Barry Rimer, a junior from Mullins, interned at Sonoma State University where he conducted research on the starvation physiology of elephant seals on the central California coast. His internship was funded by the National Science Foundation’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program. Rimer’s work was supervised by Dr. Dorian Houser, a 1992 Coker graduate. Houser says he wanted to “give back to Coker” by providing an internship that was similar to one he had as an undergraduate at the college.

Staying closer to home, sophmore Jessica Winburn of Hartsville conducted research at Clemson University’s Pee Dee Research and Education Center in Florence. Winburn’s work focused on the basic biology of an unidentified species of Labyrinthula, a single-celled protist that causes rapid blight disease in turf grass. The host range of this pathogen has recently extended from marine eelgrass to terrestrial turf grasses. Dr. Paul Peterson, a postdoctoral fellow in plant pathology, was Winburn’s on-site supervisor.

Oct. 22, 2004