Ribanna Dittrich Bio

My name is Ribanna Dittrich and I am a German Ph.D. student at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. I grew up on a small island in the North Sea (Langeoog) which may explain my never-ending curiosity for the ocean. For my undergrads, I studied marine science with a focus on Arctic studies at the Scottish Association for Marine Science. As part of this course, I've spent one year in the high Arctic in Svalbard where I conducted a lot of field work both land- and ship based. The time in Svalbard really awakened my interest in the Polar regions and conducting research in these remote areas in order to understand them better. 

For my Ph.D. I am now studying the cycling of dissolved organic matter in the oceans surrounding Antarctica. For this, I have spent the 2015-16 season at the U.S. American Palmer station on Anvers Island which is part of the West Antarctic Peninsula and I joined the annual PAL LTER cruise in January 2016 covering the ocean west of the peninsula. 

For the GO SHIP cruise, I will be a CTD watchstander and at the same time, I will be conducting a small scale incubation experiment to analyse the degradation of dissolved organic matter over time. 

Things I enjoy most are the outdoors, music and food and while I will not be able to "hike" more than a few stairs or running on a treadmill whilst being on a ship for 67 days, I am sure I won't miss either of the other two while working hard.