The Student Team

Each school year, the Lilly Center employs Grace College students to help manage scientific studies, develop and execute K-12 programs, and help manage collaborative projects. Not only during the school year, but also through the summer, our student team dedicates hours of excellent work each week to the Lilly Center.

Meet our summer 2024 teams below:

The aquarium team is responsible for the management of the fish room. They feed the fish, clean their tanks and make sure they stay healthy. The team also takes care of a handful of other creatures, including turtles, frogs and crayfish. On any given day, the team could be helping prepare lessons about the aquariums, running to the store for supplies, cleaning community tanks, and cleaning classroom tanks during the school year.

Staff manager: Grace St. Clair

The education team is responsible for helping develop our K-12 programming. They develop curriculum, teach in classrooms during the school year, plan for Lake Adventure Days and other events such as Stories & STEM, and much more. Most recently, the education team is refining the Lilly Center’s in-house field trip programming.

Staff manager: Sarah Baier

The research team members are our “boots on the ground” every week. They sample 14 key stream sites and 16 local lakes on a weekly basis during the summer. The team also helps with special projects, including testing water samples for microcystin, and studying the impact of zebra mussels. When they aren’t in the field, the students are reviewing data and taking care of equipment.

Staff manager: Jed Harvey

The marketing team informs lake residents on the most up-to-date research and connects them with events and opportunities to care for their lake. Their responsibilities include writing informational columns, blog posts, and press releases. During supporter events, their work is indispensable to preparing for and helping to make things run smoothly.

Staff manager: Rusty Martinez

The algae team takes the water samples the research team brings back from lake sampling and turns them into microscope slides. After that, they count and identify the species in the slides. That data is added to the Lilly Center’s growing catalogue of local algae species; it’s also used in the Lilly Center’s scientific reports.

Staff manager: Dr. Joe Frentzel