PhD student Meg Veitch spent the summer island hopping through the Caribbean, first accompanying thesis advisor Tom Baumiller on a research expedition to Roatan, Honduras. In the deep sea submersible Idabel they descended near 1500ft to reach the deep water crinoids, such as the stalked Bourgueticrinids.

Meg also qualified for Open Water scuba, which she put immediately put to use at the Gerace Research Center’s field course in Taphonomic and Ecological Processes in Tropical Environments on San Salvador Bahamas. There she worked with both echinoids and crinoids, surveying local sea urchin Diadema antillarum populations to assess recovery after a die-off in the early 1980s and local crinoid populations, such as Davidaster rubiginosa.