The INA Foundation is designed to promote education and research on fossil or living nannoplankton through the accumulation, management, and distribution of charitable funds. Through our generous donors, we are able to award Student Travel Grants to partially defer the costs for students attending our INA Meetings and Workshops.
The INA Foundation also sponsors and awards the Katharina von Salis Graduate Research Fellowship and the Okada-McIntyre Graduate Research Fellowship to promote and facilitate research on, respectively, fossil nannoplankton and extant nannoplankton by the upcoming generation of early career researchers.
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| Blackites truncatus from the Eocene, mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain (SEM) | Cretarhabdus conicus from Albian, western North Atlantic (SEM). | Toweius pertusus from the Eocene, mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain (SEM) |
Donations to the INA Foundation help us to achieve our goals to help students
The INA Foundation is a tax-exempt 501(c)3 corporation. Contributions by US tax-payers are deductible to the extent allowed by law.
Donations may be sent to:
International Nannoplankton Association Foundation, (Attn: Jean Self Trail), 13222 Loyalty Road, Leesburg, VA 20176, U.S.A.
For electronic transfers, please contact Jean Self-Trail for details.
Katharina von Salis Graduate Research Fellowship - 2023 awards
The International Nannoplankton Association Foundation (INAF) is pleased to offer two Graduate Research Fellowships (one for $2500 USD and one for $1000 USD) honoring Prof. Dr. Katharina von Salis (also known as Katharina Perch-Nielsen) for her many contributions to fossil nannoplankton research and to the INA. The Katharina von Salis Fellowship is intended for students actively seeking advanced degrees researching any aspect of fossil nannoplankton research. There is one award round per year with the call for proposals made in March.
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Professor Katharina von Salis (Perch-Nielsen) is renowned for her outstanding contributions to nannofossil taxonomy, biostratigraphy and palaeobiology. Through her 35 year career in nannofossil research, she produced ca. 150 publications and named around 100 species. Her extensive scientific research includes numerous nannofossil studies on the K/T boundary, covering nannofossil mass extinction and recovery from worldwide localities. She was a major contributor to DSDP microfossil studies, taking part on Legs 12 and 29 and as co-chief of Leg 39. She was a major contributor to the NEPTUNE database collating myriad nannofossil occurrence data from DSDP and ODP legs into a single database. Katharina von Salis co-edited the indispensable Plankton Stratigraphy volume and wrote the chapters on Mesozoic and Cenozoic nannofossil taxonomy and biostratigraphy as well as the Silicoflagellate chapter. She was a strong supporter of equal opportunity for women in science and technology, in her home country of Switzerland and further afield and became the first woman geologist in Greenland, taking part in several expeditions there and leading three of them. As well as being a passionate geologist, Katharina von Salis was a keen sportswoman; her accolades include Swiss cross country skiing champion and vice world champion in orienteering. She was a founding member of the International Nannoplankton Association, the INA's first president (1977-1993) and organised the first INA conference, which was held in Vienna in 1985. |
Okada-McIntyre Graduate Research Fellowship
The International Nannoplankton Association (INA) Foundation is pleased to offer two Graduate Research Fellowships (one for $2500 USD and one for $1000 USD) honoring Prof. Dr. Hisatake Okada and Prof. Dr. Andrew McIntyre for their pioneering work in the field of extant/recent nannoplankton research and for their contributions to INA. The Okada-McIntyre Fellowship is intended for students actively seeking advanced degrees researching any aspect of modern/recent calcareous nannoplankton ecological dynamics, including seawater, sediment trap and seafloor sediment records, as well as from laboratory culture experiments dealing with any morphological, genetic, biogeochemical, and/or ecological aspects of coccolithophore species. There is one award round per year with the call for proposals made in March.
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Professor Hisatake Okada, was a pioneer in extant and recent nannoplankton research. He was a student of Susumo Honjo at the University of Hokkaido in the late 1960s where he began working with living calcareous nannoplankton collected whilst on Japanese research vessels. In the early 1970s, he followed Honjo to the USA to work as an assistant scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and together with Honjo published papers on Florisphaera, community structure and marginal seas. Later, working at the Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory of Columbia University as a research associate, he closely collaborated with Andrew McIntyre and published classic papers on taxonomy and seasonality. In the late 1970s he returned to Japan and spent 20 years at Yamagata University, publishing on coccolithophorids and Gephyrocapsa evolution and participating on several DSDP & ODP legs (43, 58, 115, 164) as a nannofossil biostratigrapher, one of which resulted in the Okada & Bukry (1981) zonation still widely used today. In 1995, he moved to Sapporo, initially as a professor, and later became Dean of the Faculty of Science and Vice-President of Hokkaido University. Hisatake Okada was awarded prizes by the Paleontological Society of Japan (1988) and the Geological Society of Japan (1993). He was a keen climber and member of the university mountaineering club, and after he retired enjoyed photographing alpine flowers and compiling online guidebooks on them. |
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Professor Andrew McIntyre, was a palaeoclimatologist and a pioneer in the study of coccoliths and of their application to Quaternary oceanography and climate. He was a double alumnus of the University of Columbia, USA, where he held positions as Assistant in Sedimentation and Invertebrate Paleoecology, Biostratigraphy and Geomorphology, and as a Research Scientist. During his graduate student years, he was a skilled pilot and the proud owner of a single engine aircraft. From 1967 until his retirement in 1996, he worked at the faculty of Queens College of the City University of New York. Along with collaboration with Hisatake Okada, Andrew McIntyre was one of the pioneers of the use of the electron microscope to observe coccoliths. He was a major contributor to the CLIMAP (Climate: Long range Investigation, Mapping, and Prediction) research project, leading the collation of data and resulting production of the first global, 18,000 year summer and winter sea-surface temperature reconstruction, which is still widely referenced over 4 decades later. Examples of his many important publications include papers on Pacific and Atlantic Ocean modern Coccolithophores, their taxonomy and seasonal distribution with Hisatake Okada, and the establishment of Florisphaera profunda as a palaeoproductivity marker in series of papers with Barbara Molfino. |
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Stefania Bianco, 2023 Winner of an Okada-MacIntyre Graduate Research Fellowship I am a PhD student at University of Pavia (Italy) enrolled in the Sustainable Development and Climate Change National Program of the University School for Advanced Studies (IUSS, Pavia). My research is conducted in collaboration with the National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics (OGS, Trieste - Italy).The idea behind my project is to deepen understanding of coccolithophore responses to future climate change/ocean acidification and their impact on the ocean carbon cycle by comparing data from the fossil record with those from culture experiments. Envisaging future abundances and distribution of different coccolithophore species is essential to evaluate the contribution of this key group of marine calcifiers to the permanent sequestration of carbon from the atmosphere-ocean system. My thesis focuses on the species Helicosphaera carteri, one of the major contributors to the CaCO3 accumulation in deep-sea sediments. This species influences the carbon system more than the smaller and lighter-calcified species, thanks to its large, well-calcified coccosphere and has a long evolutionary record, overcoming several biological crises and climatic phases. Hence, understanding the effects of ocean acidification on H. carteri could be crucial in predicting the responses of heavily calcifying species to future global warming. With my research I aim to define this taxons capacity to grow and calcify under acidified conditions, but also to clarify its still debated ecological preferences. |
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Justin Jorge R. Padre, 2023 Winner of an Okada-MacIntyre Graduate Research Fellowship I am an MS Geology student at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City. My research focuses on the use of calcareous nannofossil abundances and lipid biomarker proxies to reconstruct paleoceanographic changes across Southeastern Philippines, an area which is part of the West Pacific Warm Pool, in the Holocene. This study is done in collaboration with scientists from the Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences, Brown University, USA.Some of the goals of my research is to correlate changes in abundances of dominant alkenone-producing coccolithophore species with the alkenone record and determine controls on alkenone production and calcareous nannofossil preservation. With the data produced, the research aims to give insights on the spatio-temporal variability of sea surface temperature and productivity over Southeastern Philippines in the Holocene, the relationship of abundances of alkenone-producing marine haptophytes and alkenone concentrations in the sedimentary record, and the usage of the alkenone paleothermometry method in tropical, low-latitude settings. |
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Solomon Avong, 2023 Winner of a Katharina von Salis Graduate Research Fellowship I'm an MS student at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria in Nigeria. My geoscience studies have made me more interested in understanding ocean/or climate variability periods and the effects these events have on Earth's ecosystem. My work as a Research Assistant involves the study of the Niger Delta geologic history during the early-late Miocene through analysis of large datasets and laboratory work using ditch cutting samples. I have been integrating micropaleontology (calcareous nannoplankton and foraminifera), sedimentology and geophysical methods to develop a robust biostratigraphic age model for the Niger Delta Basin evolution. The Cenozoic Niger Delta formed after the separation of the African and South American plates. Most subsurface material and data accumulated from the Niger Delta mostly has been proprietary. My research work using calcareous nannoplankton and foraminifera tries to develop a reconstruction of regional paleoenvironmental dynamics, so as to address the following overarching research questions of species diversification, distribution and abundance in the Niger Delta region. This will be used to correlate periods of shifting paleoclimate, tectonic and sea-level regimes and to provide a high resolution biostratigraphic zonation scheme through correlation with worldwide sections. Additionally, identification of sequence stratigraphic surfaces will be done in order to understand the prevailing paleoenvironmental and paleoceanographic conditions for the Nigerian Delta. By quantitatively reconstructing the paleoenvironment dynamics within the Niger Delta, this will deepen our understanding of the paleoceonographic conditions that were present during the Neogene. |
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Antonina Nosowska, 2023 Winner of a Katharina von Salis Graduate Research Fellowship I am currently a PhD student at the University of Warsaw in Poland. I work on Miocene calcareous nannoplankton from the Carpathian Foredeep deposits overlying and underlying the Outer Carpathians and on the Palaeogene and Cretaceous calcareous nannoplankton from Outer Carpathian deposits. My research focuses on biostratigraphy and paleoenvironment.In the middle Miocene, a marine transgression flooded the Carpathian Foredeep. The Paratethys Sea also entered the eroded margin of the Outer Carpathians, on which the Badenian and Sarmatian deposits were accumulated. Currently, they form isolated patches, the largest of which occupies the area of the Rzeszów Bay. These deposits lie unconformably on the Upper Cretaceous – lower Miocene deposits of the Skole Unit. At the end of the early Sarmatian, deposits of the Skole Unit with the overlying Miocene deposits were overlapped on the area of the Carpathian Foredeep. As a result of this movement, the Zglobice Unit at the Carpathian front was formed. The main goal of my study is to analyze calcareous nannoplankton from the transgressive Miocene deposits of Rzeszów Bay, as well as the Outer Carpathian deposits, the Zglobice Unit and the autochthonous Miocene deposits. The analysis of calcareous nannoplankton from drill cores representing such a long stratigraphic interval and complex geological history of the Carpathian Foredeep and Outer Carpathians has not been presented in any scientific publication so far. Perhaps, based on the analysis of long drill cores, it will be possible to answer the question of the relative age of the formation of overthrusts and more accurately determine the age of the Paratethys transgressions. |
Current Board of Directors of the INA Foundation
The bylaws of the foundation are available here.
For more information about the INA Foundation, please contact Mike Styzen.