While penguins and seals call it home, there are few permanent human residents on Antarctica. But, each year, several thousand people temporarily reside at research stations scattered across the continent. At the moment, two of them are CSU Monterey Bay alumni. Kevin Johnson and Erin Frolli, both members of the Class of 2012, had a chance meeting there recently while working on separate projects. Running into Frolli was an “incredible” surprise, Johnson said via e-mail. “I had arrived a few days ahead of her group and was finishing our required safety training when she walked past me in the hall.” Frolli was equally surprised. "You don't expect to see a fellow UROCer at the bottom of the world," she said.

They see each other often at work and around the town that is McMurdo Station.

After graduating from CSUMB – where both were involved with the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Center or UROC – they went in separate directions for graduate school.

Armed with a double major in math and environmental science, technology and policy, Frolli headed to Bozeman, Montana, where she earned a master’s degree in land resources and environmental sciences. That led to a staff position as a scientific associate in the lab of Dr. Lee Fuiman at the University of Texas. Dr. Fuiman’s research on foraging and navigation behavior of Weddell seals took Frolli to Antarctica.

With his prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship – worth $90,000 over three years – Johnson went to UC Santa Barbara to pursue a Ph.D. in marine biology.

At McMurdo Station, he is researching the impacts of climate change – specifically ocean acidification – on the development and physiology of marine invertebrates. Ocean acidification directly impacts the ability of many marine invertebrates to produce calcium carbonate shells; Johnson is measuring these effects on several organisms at the molecular level.

He is “completely blown away” by the stark beauty of Antarctica. “It is a remarkable feeling to drive a snow mobile for an hour out onto the sea ice, drill a hole and then drop a net down to 300 feet,” Johnson said.

On the sea ice, “We are surrounded by icebergs that have temporarily been trapped, forming 40-foot-tall pinnacles of blue ice. Further out looms the presence of Mount Erebus, the southernmost active volcano in the world.

“With everything covered in white, the world takes on a gray-blue scale that is hard to describe,” he said.

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Learn about McMurdo Station and the U.S. Antarctic Program and view photos from its webcam

Learn about CSUMB's Undergraduate Research Opportunities Center

*Photos courtesy of Kevin Johnson Top: Erin Frolli and Kevin Johnson at McMurdo Station in a condition 2 ground blizzard Bottom: Pteropods – swimming snails – that Johnson's team is studying*