Meet the Scientists

Yvonne Vadeboncoeur, PhD.  Wright State University. Vadeboncoeur is the PI on the parent research grant Consumer control of high-productivity, low-nutrient ecosystems: Enhancement of primary productivity by grazing fish in Lake Tanganyika,). She will be responsible for general oversight of the Into the Rift website project. She will also advise on the scientific and educational content of the website, and will provide material for data interpretation exercises associated with the website. Vadeboncoeur has studied aquatic ecosystems throughout the world.

Peter McIntyre, PhD. University of Wisconsin, Madison. McIntyre is co-PI on the parent research project. He will advise on the scientific and educational content of the website, and will provide material for data interpretation exercises associated with the website. McIntyre is a biogeochemist, aquatic ecologist and fish ecologist with research programs in Hawaii, the North American Great Lakes, and Lake Tanganyika.

Media Production Specialist. Elliot Gaines, PhD. Wright State University. Gaines will record video and still images in the field, and identify locations for collaborative web productions.  He will develop story points and narrative strategies for communicating science to public audiences.  Gaines has many years of media production experience, and has produced educational videos and audio productions illustrating communication and culture.  His published research addresses communication, culture, and media criticism, including the issues of representing science in the media.  He is the author of Media Literacy and Semiotics (2010), a book focusing on how media are used to represent the world and to construct perspectives about the meanings of events, objects, and ideas.