Bobcat Stories

Seth Monde ’22 will graduate this month from New Mexico Tech and will remain at the university to begin a master’s program in biology. Seth was accepted into an accelerated master’s program, which allowed him to take a graduate-level course this year while completing his undergraduate studies.

“Since I’ve been at NMT, I’ve had the opportunity to work with numerous research groups. My first internship was during my sophomore year, when I worked with the National Center for Genome Resources (NCGR) in Santa Fe. My role was as a bioinformatician, and I worked on comparing COVID genomes found in humans to genomes of COVID variants found in reservoir species such as white-tailed deer.

“After this internship, I secured a lab position at NMT with my former professor, Dr. Daniel S. Jones. Over the course of two years in his lab, I worked on many projects. Some of the work I’m most proud of includes identifying and characterizing bacterial species that live in hydrogen sulfide-rich environments, such as sulfidic acid caves. I was even able to isolate my own strain of Sulfuriferrula, which was an exciting capstone to the project. Under Dr. Jones, I also conducted cell counts to verify an ethanol wash method for bioreactors and created a protocol for quantifying microplastics in cave-like environments.”

Recently, Seth began working in a new lab under Dr. Benjamin Duval.

“My current research focuses on finding microbial solutions for the bioremediation of depleted uranium-contaminated soils.”

One of the things Seth appreciates most about his time at Bosque School is that he had the opportunity to become deeply involved in research while also spending significant time outdoors.

“My favorite project was a turtle tracking study focused on native and invasive species in the Rio Grande. It was incredible to actually place trackers on turtles and contribute to movement and habitat data research.”