Press

ALBANY --- Three Gulf Coast high school interns have spent the past week assisting a New York State Museum scientist with his zebra mussel research after meeting him earlier this year in Biloxi, Miss. where he was assisting residents in a Cambridge community-funded hurricane relief project.

Sarah Foster, Heather Ramon, and Michele Smith arrived in the Cambridge area on July 23rd and will return home on Tuesday, August 1st. They have been assisting Dan Molloy, director of the State Museum’s Field Research Laboratory in Cambridge, in collecting zebra mussels from local lakes and rivers and examining them for any naturally occurring diseases. Molloy’s research centers on finding natural methods to control zebra mussels, an invasive species that causes one billion dollars of damage annually.

Molloy met the students in January when he took vacation time to go to Biloxi to assist in the cleanup and reconstruction efforts in the area devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Molloy was among a group of Cambridge area residents who traveled to the area as part of a 9-day trip organized by Bob Cheney, a former high school teacher. Cheney founded the not-for profit Volunteers for Southern Construction Activities (VOSCA). Its members are primarily high school seniors whom Cheney has been taking down south since Hurricane Hugo hit in 1990. There have been 20 VOSCA funded trips during the past 16 years. After Katrina hit, Cheney immediately starting planning and raising funds for the January trip that Molloy participated in.

Although Molloy focused most of his time in Biloxi gutting a community day care center that had been under water, he took time out to give a presentation to biology

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students at an area high school at Cheney’s suggestion. He told the class he and Cheney wanted to invite a few students to come to the Cambridge laboratory for a hands-on internship. Three students applied and were accepted. VOSCA paid for their plane fares and the students stayed with Cambridge area families.

“They have had a real impact on our lab’s research progress,” said Molloy. “In the week that they have been with us, we have been able to accomplish so much together, both in the lab and field. They are bright, intellectually curious, and hard working. Our NYS Museum lab and VOSCA are pleased to have been able to offer this research experience to these three deserving students from the Katrina area.”

The New York State Museum, established in 1836, is a program of the New York

State Education Department. Located at the Empire State Plaza on Madison Avenue in Albany, the Museum is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Admission is free and the Museum is fully accessible. Further information about Museum programs and events can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.

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