Graduate Student Wins Research Grant

By Desiree Cooper

Current graduate student Rick Raymondi (attending) was awarded the New Mexico Water Resources Research Institute (WRRI) Student Water Research Grant, which provides funds for water-related research throughout the state. Rick said the application process alone was challenging. He had to convince the grant committee in just three pages, giving enough background on his research objective, his methodology, and the significance of this research.

Rick discussed his plans for the grant and what the award means to him.

“I will be using this reward to improve our wet lab located in the Behavioral Ecology Laboratory at ENMU by purchasing equipment that will improve Eastern’s fish husbandry practices and to monitor water quality during research,” Rick said. “My project relies on being able to artificially spawn fish in the lab as their larvae are the subject of my experiment.”

Rick is performing a study to test the effects of high discharge released from reservoirs on pelagic-spawning minnows of the Pecos River in New Mexico. Pelagic-spawning minnows are a group of fish whose females release eggs directly in the water column to be fertilized by males. The fertilized eggs drift downstream, where they hatch and continue drifting as larvae. The fish rely on water temperature and streamflow as environmental cues to initiate spawning behavior with a continuous and uninterrupted flow, which is required to advance to the juvenile life stage.

He explained that dam construction on the Pecos River has fragmented the river, so it no longer resembles the historical conditions in which these fishes thrived and evolved.

“My ultimate goal is to work with anadromous fish in the Northwest U.S.,” explained Rick. “Because my research project involves desert fishes and not salmonids, I am learning techniques every professional needs when pursuing a career in the sciences.”

Rick added that his coursework and the mentoring he received from ENMU faculty helped him become familiar with the grant writing process and its associated technical writing aspects.