Profiles of 2004 Graduating Students

Andrea Shaw: A marine biologist who is turning her focus to people

By Roger Segelken

By now Andrea Shaw knows more than most marine biologists about what makes coral reefs sick. Next, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences honors graduate will try to answer the same question for people.

Shaw

"I was attracted to Cornell by the strong marine sciences program," said the Manlius, N.Y., native, who first got her feet wet, literally, as a high schooler studying coral reef health in Pacific waters around Fiji. She knew that this land-locked university runs Shoals Marine Laboratory in the Gulf of Maine, where Shaw took summer classes, and has connections to other salt-water sites, such as Florida's Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute. And a Cornell semester abroad at James Cook University in tropical Queensland, Australia, afforded access to the Great Barrier Reef and to even more marine courses to complement her training in ecology and evolutionary biology at Cornell.

As the end of her junior year approached, it was time for Shaw to choose an independent research project. Under the direction of C. Drew Harvell, a professor of ecology, she chose to work from Harbor Branch to develop new cell-culture techniques for disease studies in sea fan corals.

Collecting coral samples in the Florida Keys and Bahamas was the easy part for the skilled diver. Her pioneering laboratory work to develop cell-culture methodologies was "a phenomenal accomplishment by an unusually determined and independent student," said Harvell, who heads the multi-university Marine Disease Working Group. Shoals Lab Director James Morin called Shaw's research "absolutely wonderful."

Yet, something was lacking for the student who came to Cornell with long-term plans for a research career in marine biology. The rigors of laboratory and field research were challenging enough, she said, "but I was missing the people component." And coral reefs -- important as they are -- aren't people.

So Shaw switched gears and is headed to Upstate Medical University in Syracuse to work on an M.D. degree. Harvell is only slightly disappointed to lose a promising researcher to medicine, saying, "Andrea will be a really great doctor."

Four tough years of book learning lie ahead for the erstwhile researcher. Still, she can't resist one more taste of salt water. This summer she will assist in a study of sea turtles. Then it's back to the Maine coast for a National Audubon Society project with sea birds.