Author: Chelsea Zukowski

By GABBY DACOSTA
USFSP Student Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG – Erin Symonds is a postdoctoral researcher who investigates water quality on the coast of Costa Rica.

Brian Barnes is a postdoctoral research associate who uses satellite data to measure the impact that dredging has on bodies of water.

Patrick Schwing is a research associate who studies the way organisms on the ocean floor have responded to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

From the ocean floor of the Gulf to the beaches in Costa Rica, the three researchers at the USF College of Marine Science are looking for answers to an ocean of questions.

The USF College of Marine Science, which dates back 50 years, has 26 faculty members, a hundred graduate students and another hundred technical and administrative staff members.

The college is recognized internationally for its graduate education programs and research in ocean science. With scientists in every ocean, the college researches global and regional issues, including red tides, coral reef health, sea level rise, and ocean acidification.

Collaborating with local, national, and international partners, the college aims to increase and use knowledge of global ocean systems and human-ocean interactions through research, graduate education and community engagement.

“One of the misconceptions is that we know quite a bit about the global ocean,” said Schwing. “The truth is that we’ve mapped in high resolution about 3 percent of it.”

Since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, Schwing and the Center for Integrated Modeling and Analysis of Gulf Ecosystems, a research consortium of 19 U.S. and international partners, have been working on a 10-year program.

By collecting samples of sediment, water and fish tissue, they can measure at the impact and recovery of the Gulf ecosystem.

He explained some of the results of the project.

“We are getting a pretty good idea of what type of impacts to expect from a large submarine oil spill and what sort of time frame it takes for certain communities to recover,” said Schwing.

Although Barnes collaborates with researchers around the world, he mainly works alongside colleagues in the optical oceanography lab at the College of Marine Science.

“An overarching goal of my work is to improve satellite ocean color products and algorithms and make the data more accessible to relevant users,” Barnes said.

He explained that he analyzed satellite data on the expansion of the Port Miami to capture what scientists call the “spatiotemporal frequency of turbidity plumes” resulting from dredging.

Working with others who performed reef surveys, his team was able to further estimate the impact of dredging on reefs.

As a result of this work, the United States Environmental Protection Agency contracted him to capture baseline spatiotemporal plume frequency for another system that is slated to undergo similar dredging.

“I was able to develop a new method of analyzing satellite data, which improved understanding of environmental impacts, and subsequently led to use of satellite data in historical analysis and real-time monitoring of future dredging events,” he said.

Symonds works along the beach in Costa Rica in the so-called MERA Investigation, which is named for its acronym in Spanish and stands for “environment, ethnography, risk assessment and water quality.”

Scientists from USF, Southern Methodist University and Costa Rican institutions are collaborating on a water quality investigation that focuses on human behavior, water quality and human health to improve beach management and protect public health.

With water quality measurements and information on environmental change, people’s activities on the beach, and local choices about water management, her team aims to better identify what could potentially damage coastal water resources.

“I hope the study provides data and info that informs future policy decisions related to recreational waters,” she said.

By KIARA SORIANO
USFSP Student Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG – When she was 22, Tiffany Chenneville says, a close friend was diagnosed with HIV – a relatively new disease that at the time almost always led to death.

Now, 27 years later, the USF St. Petersburg psychology professor makes HIV and its impact on young people, including children and adolescents, the focus of her research.

That research has taken her four times to Kenya, an African country with an alarming number of youth who struggle with HIV and the stigma and discrimination that accompany it.

“I think that there is such a stigma surrounding HIV in youth due to history. HIV and AIDS used to be called gay-related immune deficiency disease,” said Chenneville.

“People were so scared when they heard about someone having HIV because not much research was available at the time. We’ve gotten better about learning more and researching ways to help, but I still think we have a long way to go.”

Chenneville, who is chair of the Department of Psychology at USF St. Petersburg, is also director of the university’s psychology graduate program and a behavioral health consultant at the USF Tampa Department of Pediatrics.

She has contributed to dozens of published studies in her field.

In her dimly lit office lined with shelves of binders, Chenneville welcomes students who seek her counsel on academic issues and conducts her research on how to help youths around the world who are struggling with HIV.

In her research, she is director of the REACH Youth Center. REACH stands for Researching Effective Actions Concerning HIV among Youth.

As director, she collaborates with others around the world on the HIV SEERs Project in Kenya, which stands for Stigma Reduction through Education, Empowerment, and Research.

She calls the program one of the most engaging and enriching experiences of her career.

“I had an incredible time in Kenya,” she said. “It was really great to see the sense of community that the country has. Here in this country, we don’t see that often, so it’s nice to see how different people live around the world and interact.”

Chenneville has been to Kenya four times, most recently in August and September. Due to the country’s alarming rate of children and adolescents with HIV diagnoses, Chenneville chose to do cross-cultural research there.

Globally, there is a stigma surrounding HIV-positive youth. In 2018, around 1.6 million adolescents were living with HIV around the world, according to UNICEF.

In some parts of Africa, including Kenya, many adolescents don’t get the opportunity to be tested for HIV so the numbers could be even higher.

The SEERs project has had success because of its emphasis on getting the community involved, Chenneville said. The project involves four components that work together to improve the wellness of those with HIV – information, skills building, support/resources, and personal contact.

The skills-building part of the program helps victims fight the stigma of HIV. In Kenya, fighting the stigma seems like a particularly hard hurdle.

“In the area that I work in Kenya, people have told me that although they are knowledgeable on the subject, they are scared to speak out because they fear people might think that they have HIV,” said Chenneville.

Although the SEERs project has made strides in fighting the stigma and educating the youth on HIV in Kenya, Chenneville has bigger goals in mind and what she wants to do next.

“In terms of my next steps, I want to do another study in Kenya. I’m also planning on partnering with a faculty member at a university in Kenya to take the SEERs project into the prison system.

“Then I have a new collaborator in England who is from Nigeria, who wants to adapt the program to work with black sub-Saharan communities in England.”

By KAMRYN ELLIOTT
USFSP Student Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG – A small, wooden pallet is positioned in the left corner beneath a TV screen that hangs on a wall inside the press box at Al Lang Stadium.

It’s called the “apple box,” and it is used as a stool to make Ryan Davis, the color analyst on the Tampa Bay Rowdies’ TV broadcasts, look taller.

“It looks unnatural when he’s standing next to Drew Fellios, who covers play-by-play, on air. This helps him look the same height,” said Mike Manganello, the Rowdies’ communications coordinator.

Manganello graduated from the University of South Florida Tampa with a degree in international relations and a minor in geography. He was an intern for the Rowdies during his sophomore year and sports editor at The Oracle, the campus paper, for 18 months in 2010-2012.

“I asked if they (the Rowdies) would hire me and they said, ‘Yes, but we don’t have the money,’” said Manganello.

They found the money somehow because he was hired shortly after that and has been working there since March 2014.

During the 10-month soccer season he is in perpetual motion.

“I run around the stadium making sure everything runs smoothly before the game starts, during the game, and after the game,” said Manganello.

All of the home games begin at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday because the team controls the facility. They are able to pick the day and time of the week for games.

Manganello arrives at the stadium around 3:30 p.m. to begin his day.

“It’s not that early to show up, but I do most of my prep work on Friday so I can stay home until 3 p.m. on Saturday watching college football,” said Manganello.

The first things he checks are his lights and setup at the press conference location. He then checks in with the coaches to make sure the lineup hasn’t changed overnight. This is important because he needs it to make the starting lineup graphics for social media.

After that, he helps set things up in the press box upstairs. Every week he writes a booklet of notes for the media.

“It basically tries to answer any question a reporter may have before they have to bother me by asking something,” said Manganello.

He said the media booklet contains the season’s schedule, what happened the previous week, coaches’ records, and notes about the team that might be mentioned during the broadcast.

This includes the team’s record each year since it started in 2010, the type of jerseys worn at each game, and goals scored. It’s like a study guide for a soccer team, except it’s called a media guide.

The players start arriving at 5:30 p.m. and Manganello checks in and wishes them good luck because, he said, “we are a family.”

The team operations staff will fill out the official lineup card and he uses this to create a clean version for the press. This is completed by 6 p.m. before any media shows up for the game.

On a typical game day, three reporters work in the press box, one from the Tampa Bay Times and two from a fan blog and podcast outfit. TV stations don’t attend since they are sent highlights as soon as the game ends.

Manganello works closely with the design team at Tropicana Field for graphics and visuals. The Tampa Bay Rays bought the Rowdies in 2018, and employees from both teams work together on marketing and design.

“We have a huge graphic design team at Tropicana Field that supports us so I’m fortunate to where I don’t have to do a lot of design, but I still make sure to learn basic design skills,” said Manganello.

Once his pre-game responsibilities are done and posted online, Manganello watches the players warm up. At kickoff he sits on a field-level platform between the coaches to live tweet the game.

“I try to get an update every three or four minutes of important things, but once a player scores I have to abandon that since I’m the only person in my job. I pull up highlights from the live broadcast that we have from sponsors and post those because we can’t miss those important moments,” said Manganello.

The goals are sponsored by Visit St. Pete/Clearwater, the tourism marketing department for Pinellas County, so he has to pull up the highlights as fast as he can and tag VSPC on all platforms.

Once this is completed, he can get back to live tweeting the game.

After the game, he meets the media at the tunnel in the stadium and asks which players they would like to interview. Manganello then escorts these players to the press conference area.

His final tasks are cutting full highlights of the game for media use, making a graphic on the final stats, writing a recap that goes on the team website and sending it out as a press release for all of the media, and updating the website to make sure everything is current.

“I get here around 3:30ish and leave around 12:30 a.m.,” said Manganello.

During the offseason the pace slows considerably.

The major events are usually player signings. Once he gets word of a signing, he makes a press release announcing it and calls the graphics department to make a graphic. He also calls the video department to create a highlight video on that player.

“I’m a one-man show. Sometimes it gets overwhelming, but I love what I do so I can’t complain,” said Manganello.

By EMILY SISELL
USFSP Student Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG – As a young teen in Colombia, Leo Gomez dodged the authorities to paint graffiti on the sides of railroad cars.

Now, as a U.S. citizen, he makes a living doing commission-based art in St. Petersburg.

His latest creation was a 135-foot-long mural titled “Sunshine on my Mind” on the side of the Ice House of St. Petersburg at 1955 Third Ave. S.

Gomez found artistic inspiration from hip-hop culture in the ‘90s. On his website, he describes himself as “a hand lettering artist, muralist, and all around lover of hand craft art.”

He says he is passionate about “keeping the sign craft alive, transforming boring walls into inspiring spaces and boosting engagement with bright and colorful designs.”

His clients, he says, have included Starbucks, Publix, the Body Electric Yoga Co., the Hollander Hotel and the Love Food Central café.

This was the first year that Gomez, 28, participated as one of 16 artists in the annual SHINE St. Petersburg Mural Festival in October.

The event was the fifth annual campaign to cover some of St. Petersburg’s drab buildings with inspiring street art. It is part of an explosion in so-called public art around the country in recent years.

As the years have gone by, Gomez found himself wanting to create larger pieces. That led to this year’s SHINE festival and his biggest paid painting yet.

Gomez said he had complete artistic freedom to create his colorful mural.

The festival started with three rainy days so Gomez had to put his brush down. And when sunny days returned, he ran into a different problem when his lift stopped working temporarily.

He spent the remainder of that day working on areas he could reach from the ground.

Despite the challenges, Gomez still finished on Oct. 26 as expected.

Difficulties like this make it worthwhile in the end, he said. “The most happiness is brought when I see how people react to my art.”

He has always lived with the determination to get his art on the streets.

“Fear is just a thing in our minds,” said Gomez. “It’s something we create ourselves, and if other people can do it, so can you.”

By LEANNA DOOLITTLE
USFSP Student Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG – What do Legos, Jack Kerouac, and virtual reality have in common?

Not much, unless you attended Nerd Nite on Oct. 23 at the Iberian Rooster at 425 Central Ave..

The event, which is billed as “a TED talk with beer,” is all about creating a space for anyone brave enough to go on stage and talk unabashedly for 20 minutes about their passion.

One speaker is by day an artist and muralist and by night an avid fan of Kerouac.

James Hartzell’s admiration for Kerouac started in high school and has gotten stronger over time. He is the secretary of the Friends of Kerouac House Foundation, a group working to make Kerouac’s last house at 5169 10th Ave. N in St. Petersburg a historical monument.

His dedication to preserving Kerouac’s legacy in St. Petersburg has even played out in his art.

During the 2016 SHINE festival, Hartzell painted a mural of Kerouac on the side of the Flamingo Sports Bar, the place where Kerouac “notoriously drank himself to death” in 1969, said Hartzell.

Although Kerouac’s wild lifestyle was interesting, Hartzell was drawn to the way he connected with people.

“Everyone was given equal importance in his novels. It didn’t matter if you were a field hand in Mexico, or a jazz musician, or a vagabond like him.”

By connecting the routes of all the places that Kerouac lived, Hartzell said, we can bring those communities together.

“Appealing to the west coast crowd in San Francisco to the east coast crowd here in St. Pete, … we want to build bridges, we don’t want to wall people out,” said Hartzell.

Another speaker, Tod Stephens, brought his Oculus Go headset and described how he uses 3D technology to create films displayed through virtual reality.

He went through the process of creating, editing, and displaying a film called “Fractal Immersion,” which he created using 360 camera technology.

According to the Nerd Nite facebook page, fractals are “colorful patterns driven by mathematical formulas.”

After Stephens’ presentation, the audience took turns with the Oculus Go headset, immersing themselves in the geometric world of his film.

Stephens’ goals are to use live, interactive, 360 videos to help the SPCA promote dog adoptions, and to have his fractal film displayed at the Tribeca Film Festival.

The last speaker was Scott Fitchet. His presentation was about creating small scale dioramas of solar power technologies, making the large and complex process easier to understand.

By using Legos to describe the intricate systems of solar power, Fitchet hopes to educate people of all ages. “Adults aren’t going to save the world, so I’m going to teach this stuff to little kids,” he said.

After going to Nicaragua to learn how to install solar panels, Fitchet figured out how to break down the process into four basic components – solar panels, charge controllers, battery banks, and outlets.

According to Fitchet, once you know how all these things work together, installing solar panels is less daunting and easier to understand.

At the end of the presentation, Fitchet pulled up a picture of the actor Kevin James as his character on “King of Queens.”

“You’re not going have a sitcom on CBS where a bumbling idiot with a heart of gold is going to show you how to install solar panels.” said Fitchet “This guy (James) drives around and he spits carbon monoxide into the atmosphere. So you need to be the person who does this, you need to be the bumbling idiot in your sitcom.”

Nerd Nite was founded in Boston in 2003 by a biology graduate student named Chris Balakrishnan. Since then it has become a worldwide event.

People from Washington, D.C., to Melbourne, Australia, can get connected and engaged with people in their communities to talk about their passions and to geek out.

Vikki Nelson and Matt Gamel, audience members at the Oct. 23 event, have gone to Nerd Nites in Phoenix, Miami and now St. Petersburg.

“It’s a date night; we hit one wherever we go,” said Gamel.

The St. Petersburg event was hosted by Nerd Night bosses Brandi Askin, Caryn Nesmith and Gerni Oster.

It was Oster’s idea to bring Nerd Nite to St. Petersburg, said Nesmith.

“St. Petersburg is always looking for cool things to do. Every bar has a thing they use to attract people, and there are cool bars here. It’s not as busy here so you can find a venue,” said Oster.

Although you don’t have to be a professional in your field of choice, “we want people who are passionate and knowledgeable, something that is based in fact, someone who knows how to research something; there should be some rigor.” said Askins

“It is kinda fun to put those people together. People who are experts in their field and people that are just into something,” added Nesmith.

For these three women, their favorite part of Nerd Nite is planning the event and sharing it with the community.

”It starts to be the same people that come and you start to know everybody,” said Nesmith. “I think it was really fun to be here together and start to have that community around us.”

Askin added, “It is fun and community and education and social change. The discussions that people have, where they get excited about new ideas can lead to new things in their lives, it feels like an important purpose.”

Nerd Nite at the Iberian Rooster happens at 6:45 p.m. on the fourth Wednesday of every month.

By LEANNA DOOLITTLE
USFSP Student Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG – Miguel and Holly have been together since 2008.

They aren’t dating. They are the radio hosts of Hot 101.5’s “Miguel and Holly Show” in the all-important 6 to 9 a.m. slot.

Joined by Scott Tavlin (or “Scotty with the Body,” as he’s known on-air), Miguel Fuller and Holly O’Connor get up every morning to fill the radios of daily commuters with music and entertainment.

WPOI “Hot 101.5” is a so-called CHR station (contemporary hits radio) that targets people in the important 18-to-34 demographic. It is owned by the Cox Media Group chain.

Fuller, 34, grew up in Atlanta and got a bachelor’s in broadcast from Georgia Southern University in 2007

O’Connor, 37, is from Ohio. She got a bachelor’s in communications from Ohio Northern University in 2004.

The two started together in 2008 in Panama City Beach, then went to Play 98.7 in Tampa Bay. When the station abruptly switched formats, they returned to Panama City Beach before settling in St. Petersburg in March 2015.

Their show is upbeat, transitioning between Top 40 chart hits like Lizzo’s “Good as Hell” or Camila Cabello’s “Senorita.” With the addition of weather forecasts, local traffic updates, giveaways and zany segments, it seems like the show, and its hosts, are going a mile a minute.

That’s the magic of radio.

Headphones on and headphones off is a constant repetition occurring behind the scenes of the “Miguel and Holly Show.”

After O’Connor announces a giveaway for Cabello tickets, Fuller chooses a song and the headphones come off. Fuller begins to edit a segment for later in the show, while Tavlin starts taking the multitude of calls coming in for the tickets.

“You’re caller No. 1; please call back again … You’re caller No. 2; please call back again …” is Tavlin’s answer to each phone call until he finally reaches No. 20.

The call is transferred to the speaker so Fuller and O’Connor can let her know she’s won.

The call, the winner’s excitement, and Fuller and O’Connor’s congratulations are recorded. The headphones go back on and the pre-recorded conversation is played over the air as if it were live.

This happens again during the show’s “Blown Off” segment. Someone calls in after going on a few dates and thinking it’s going well until their date suddenly stops responding.

The broken-hearted calls Fuller and O’Connor, who then call the heartbreaker, questioning what went wrong, while the heartbroken keeps quiet on the line.

Sometimes it ends well, sometimes it ends poorly. But it is entertaining either way.

It sounds like the calls are happening live at 7:30 a.m. In reality, they were recorded the day before.

It’s not all pre-recorded, however. Fuller announced the recipe to his famous mac and cheese on air, and O’Connor talked about her daughter’s lucky Brussels sprout.

Those live sessions are intermingled with on-the-spot edited or pre-recorded segments.

Knowing what’s happening and when it’s happening, at the show’s fast pace could get confusing, but Fuller and O’Connor are in sync.

“We’ve stayed with each other since 2008, which doesn’t happen all the time,” said O’Connor. “It’s really good when you can (stay together) because we just know each other and that helps with our radio purposes. But it is also nice because you have someone who’s got your back in the business.”

They say the thing that has kept them motivated is being able to connect with people and make their mornings a little better.

“Anything that entertains people and makes them feel like they are not alone, has sort of been a hallmark of why we’ve continued to do this,” said Fuller. “You realize that there is so much good that comes just from helping people start their day off.”

By LIZ STOCKBRIDGE
USFSP Student Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG – As a newspaper journalist for a quarter century, Katherine Snow Smith covered business news, wrote a column about parenting and edited a slick magazine for affluent readers.

She also fell into President Barack Obama’s lap at a White House Christmas party for journalists in 2009.

In November 2018, however, Smith left journalism to join B2 Communications, a public relations agency in St. Petersburg.

It was hard to leave the Tampa Bay Times, her workplace since 1994, because there were “so many bright, funny, and smart people of all ages and all backgrounds with a very communal cause to get the paper out,” said Smith, 51.

But newspaper journalism today is beset with financial challenges and an uncertain future, and B2 seemed to offer fresh opportunities and stability.

Smith says she has found many similarities between journalism and public relations, but some noteworthy differences as well.

As the senior content strategist at B2, Smith spends her days pitching stories, dealing with the news media, planning conferences, and writing blog posts, case studies and newsletters for other colleagues’ clients.

Whether she is e-mailing, texting or calling clients left and right, Smith stays busy. B2’s clients include SPCA Tampa Bay, Valley Bank and the Community Foundation of Tampa Bay.

One of the benefits of PR work is that “you do get to establish a relationship; you’re allowed to form a friendship with your sources and your clients,” Smith said. “As a reporter, you could have friendships, but you couldn’t be on their side in reporting stories.”

Smith found that writing PR releases is quite comparable to writing newspaper stories.

“It’s a lot of interviewing, getting the stories, finding the hook or what makes it interesting,” Smith said. “Sometimes the client doesn’t know what the compelling thing is.”

Smith grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina, where her father was a newspaper editor and columnist and her mother taught speech communication to college students.

She earned a bachelor’s in journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and started her career covering three tiny towns in South Carolina.

There, Smith met fellow journalist Adam C. Smith, who became her husband for 24 years and father of their three children.

He was a reporter at the St. Petersburg Times, so she moved to Florida and worked at the Tampa Bay Business Journal, then shifted to the Times to cover business in Pasco County.

When the first of her three children were born, she left the paper’s staff, but for 10 years she wrote a column about parenting called “Rookie Mom.”

Smith’s work does not stop at raising children and representing clients.

After taking a memoir writing class at Eckerd College, Smith was inspired to try a different style of writing.

A collection of essays about her humorous experiences, Rules for the Southern Rulebreaker: Missteps and Lessons Learned, is scheduled for publication next July.

The awkward encounter with Obama came in 2009, when she accompanied her husband – by then the Times’ political editor – to a White House Christmas Party.

Smith dressed for the occasion of meeting the president of the United States but broke the Southern rule about wearing sensible shoes.

She wore high heels.

“An epidural could not have lessened the severe pain from my toes to my spine as I hobbled through the most elegant night of my life,” Smith said.

When it came time for Smith and her husband to pose for a picture with the president and the first lady, things went south – including Smith.

“Just as we smiled for our big moment, my left foot twisted, my knee gave way, I fell against the 44th president of the United States, then headed backward,” Smith said.

Her heels were her misstep, her fall a lesson learned that became one essay in her forthcoming book.

To read more about Smith’s missteps, readers can pre-order her book on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Rules-Southern-Rule-Breaker-Missteps-ebook/dp/B07VKSC2Y1/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=rules+for+the+southern+rule+breaker&qid=157 3087033&sr=8-1