Yusuf Awaluddin

First of all, I would like to thank GLOMAR for great supports during my preparation and research stay. I have spent 2 months (June – July 2015) at the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences (IMCS), Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA in the working group of Prof. Yair Rosenthal. They were very welcoming and friendly. It was remarkable experience both personally and professionally with Prof. Rosenthal as my supervisor and it was an important contribution to advance my PhD project. Furthermore, I received some suggestions in the way how to analyze the results and in my project generally. Recently, I still communicate with my host for further data analysis and future collaboration.

The objectives of my research stay were to learn different cleaning protocol from different laboratories and to obtain elemental ratios using sector field Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) from my own samples. During the stay, I got the training about different ways of foram cleaning protocol in the laboratory. I had obtained assistance from the group colleagues to prepare my own samples and to measure them using the ICP-MS instrument. I also had experienced to operate this instrument. Also, I had productive meeting with my supervisor to discuss my project itself and the results attained from the instrument. The results acquired are promising and will be an important starting point as the asset to support my first manuscript.

In addition, I would like to appreciate the assistances and some events, such as Coffee Hour, Scholar Summer Trip and Independence Day Fireworks, which were organized by Center for Global Services, Rutgers University for all J-1 visa scholar holders during our stay in Rutgers University. Finally, I would like to say thanks to GLOMAR for the financial support in which without it I would not have been able to conduct this research and obtain priceless experiences at the IMCS, Rutgers University.