Eli completed the RIOs REU summer internship in 2024 while completing a bachelor's degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at University of California, Santa Cruz. He researched morphometric differences between the Atlantic surf clam Spisula solidissima solidissima and the southern subspecies Spisula solidissima similis. He is currently studying urban conservation issues such as the pattern of bird-window collisions across the California bay area.
Ru joined the lab as a part of an undergraduate internship from 2023-2024 while pursuing a bachelor's degree in marine biology from the University of New England. Her research focused on the Ørsted offshore wind development sampling data and investigating the importance of multi-gear usage when sampling for offshore fisheries surveys. As of Fall 2024, Ru is a researcher in the Garvey Lab at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. She leads the electrofishing and gillnetting efforts on the Illinois and Wabash rivers. Her broader interests lie in understanding how the changing climate is impacting the physiology and movement behavior of vulnerable species.