Research Internship Testimonial | Célestin Goubau | VUB Brussels University

At my University we promote students to go abroad. I wanted to learn from new people and gaining more practical/field experience and found the internship proposals here in Gibraltar. Additionally I found it really interesting to learn and see different seas and oceans. As I live close by the North Sea it is really interesting to learn more about both the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.

I stayed for two months in Gibraltar which gave me enough time to conduct two different research topics. I first started to work on zooplankton and analyse possible community differences due to the different currents occurring around Gibraltar. This was done by trawling and analysing each sample afterwards with microscopes. The second month I did a monitoring project where I looked at the presence of certain invasive species in Gibraltar’s waters. To analyse this I took underwater images from the pontoons in the marina that I analysed with a programme.

I really liked working on different subjects that are not related. Both the field work and data-analyse of both research topics were completely different. For the zooplankton research I learned how to trawl and work in a lab with microscopes. For the invasive species monitoring I had to make underwater images and analyse them with a programme. I also had to build a structure to have stable images under water. Finally, I learned to work with different programmes such as Biigle and PhotoQuad. One thing is common for both research, I learned to work on my own and be more confident in finding solutions.

I have to be honest, before starting this internship I did not know what I wanted to do. During my stay in Gibraltar it convinced me more to continue into research. This research can be as a PhD or somewhere else it doesn’t really matter as long as I can contribute to a better understanding of the marine environment and improve global ocean health.