My name is Gabrielle Greaney and I am a senior at ODU majoring in Marine Biology. I have been working as a PURS (Program for Undergraduate Research and Scholarship) student in the Mulholland Nitrogen and Carbon Biogeochemistry Lab since May of 2022. My research focus is on dinoflagellate cysts (specifically Margalefidinium polykrikoides) and how their resuspension leads to bloom initiation. Over the summer of 2022, I assisted in the sampling team while also sampling for my own research. I am now extracting DNA from my water column samples so I can use qPCR to determine the percentage of Margalefidinium polykrikoides cysts present in the Lafayette River.