Month: July 2020

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IGC IGCoffeeConvo Interfaces of Global Change IGEP

IGCoffeeConvo with Josef Uyeda

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Written by Joshua Mouser

The first IGC Coffee Convo since closure of the university was conducted on July 23rd via Zoom! These conversations allow students to create connections with faculty members they might not normally interact with. GCC faculty Dr. Josef Uyeda met with IGC Fellows Joshua Mouser, Chloe Moore, Melissa Burt, and Nicole Ward.

As fitting with the virtual nature of the meeting, the group started by discussing how we have adjusted to the changes and challenges brought on by the pandemic. We discussed virtual conferences, staying connected with friends and lab mates, and how we have adjusted our research. Overall, it seems that everyone was able to adjust effectively and the delays in fieldwork have even given some of us a chance to catch up on other pieces of our projects.

The conversation then pivoted to Dr. Uyeda’s research, which focuses on connecting micro and macro evolutionary processes. One of his current projects attempts to understand why evolution is such a slow process when it could be much faster. The thought of evolution being a “fast” process is contrary to what most of us think. As an example, Dr. Uyeda explained that in the last 300–500 years dogs have been bred to display a range of skull shapes that is greater than the range found in the rest of the carnivores. The quickness that dogs have evolved through breeding leads to the question, why do animals tend to go extinct rather than adapt quickly if evolution can occur quickly?

We also discussed diversity and inclusion efforts by the University, its departments, and the role GCC can play in increasing diversity. A common sentiment we shared was that as students we often do not have the power to make the changes that we want to see. Dr. Uyeda encouraged us to not give up and seek out those that have the power to make changes.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_separator style=”shadow”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Categories
Biodiversity Blog Geology Global Change IGC Interfaces of Global Change IGEP Postcards Research

Postcard from a Fellow: Ernie Osburn’s year of two summers

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By Ernie Osburn |  July 23, 2020

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Hello everyone! I hope this postcard finds you healthy and safe. If you don’t know me already, I’m Ernie, an IGC fellow from the Biological Sciences department. My research focuses on how landscape history influences soil microbial communities and their ecosystem functions. My goal today is to entertain you with stories about my summer research adventures. Only one problem – this summer has been a weird one. Not sure if you guys have heard, but there is a global pandemic going on right now that has messed up everyone’s summer plans, including my own. As a result, I find myself most days in an empty lab in a mostly empty building doing tedious, mind-numbing lab work. Nothing too exciting to write about, unfortunately . . . However, I was fortunate enough this year to experience two summers: the current northern hemisphere summer as well as the austral (southern hemisphere) summer while doing field work in Antarctica during January and February. Antarctica is much more interesting than Derring Hall, so I’ll write about my time “on the ice.”

My lab mate Sarah and I began our Antarctic adventure on December 12th 2019. Our travels began with about 24 consecutive hours of airline flights from Roanoke, VA to Washington D.C. to Houston, TX, to Auckland, New Zealand, and finally to Christchurch, New Zealand. Because of time zone changes, we lost a day in transit and landed on December 14th. The next day, I attended some training sessions and was issued my extreme cold weather gear (ECW) at the U.S. Antarctic Program facility in Christchurch, NZ. Normally, the flight down to “the ice” is scheduled for the following day, but because of weather delays, we did not fly out until December 17th. The flight was a loud, uncomfortable, 8 hour trip in jump seats on a C-130 with my legs interlocked with those of the people across from me. After the plane landed on the Ross Ice Shelf, we were transported to McMurdo Station.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”50356″ img_size=”large” add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”50357″ img_size=”large” add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]While in Antarctica, about half of my time was spent living at McMurdo station and processing samples in the lab facility there. McMurdo station is located on Ross Island just off the coast of the Antarctic continent and is the central base of operations for the U.S. Antarctic Program. McMurdo is the most populated place in Antarctica and is essentially a functioning town, complete with a fire department, a water treatment facility, a waste management facility, a library, a hair salon, a general store, and three bars. At its busiest, there were more than 1,200 residents at McMurdo, a mixture of researchers, support staff, and military personnel. Everyone on station eats meals in “the galley,” a big cafeteria. The food is generally all frozen and non-perishable, with fresh food available very rarely. So not the best. People live in very close quarters at McMurdo – everyone is assigned a dorm room with 1-3 roommates and bathrooms are all communal. Also, social life at McMurdo is surprisingly lively. Nearly every night of the week there are events, often involving live music. Most notably is the annual New Year’s Eve concert/party called ‘Ice Stock.’ One interesting quirk of McMurdo is that people like to dress up in silly costumes for these events. There are lots of costume options readily available on station (for reasons unknown to me), so I decided to participate a couple of times after coming across some fun animal costumes. In general, if you thought living in Antarctica would be an isolating experience, you would be very wrong! If you’re interested in learning more about life at McMurdo station, check out the ‘Antarctica: A Year on Ice’ documentary, which is free with Amazon Prime.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”50359″ img_size=”large” add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”50367″ img_size=”large” add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The other half of my time in Antarctica was spent living at field camps in the McMurdo Dry Valleys. The Dry Valleys are the largest ice-free areas in Antarctica. For about two months of every year during the austral summer, temperatures get high enough that ice melts, forming streams. These streams flow from glaciers up in the mountains to freshwater lakes at the bottom of each basin. Most of the lake surfaces are covered by a layer of permanent ice, though liquid water ‘moats’ form around the edges of the lakes in the summer months. Most of the lake basins are ‘endorheic,’ meaning they do not have an outflow to the ocean. This causes minerals to accumulate over time, which causes the lakes to form saline layers.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”50354″ img_size=”large” add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”50358″ img_size=”large” add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”50368″ img_size=”large” add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”50369″ img_size=”large” add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The Dry Valleys are located on the Antarctic continent across McMurdo Sound and are only accessible by helicopter. My first trip out to the Dry Valleys was my first time flying in a helicopter and it’s a thrilling experience! While living at the field camps, I slept in a tent each night, which is very difficult with 24 hours of daylight. In fact, I did not see the sun set during my entire two month stay in Antarctica! The field camps also have permanent structures, including small lab spaces and a heated living space with a gas or solar powered appliances such as stoves, ovens, refrigerators, and freezers. The field camps even have wi-fi! The only amenity missing from the field camps is running water, but otherwise living in the camps is surprisingly comfortable. While in the Dry Valleys, Sarah and I hiked to various locations in multiple lake basins to sample soils and microbial mats. These microbial mats are the “forests” of the Dry Valleys and are the most conspicuous life found there. The mats form in lakes, streams, and wet soils, and there are green, red, orange, and black mat varieties, each composed of different microbial taxa. Our goal with these samples is to understand how differences in soil nutrient availability due to the unique geologic histories of the different lake basins has influenced the structure and ecosystem functioning of microbial communities present in these environments.

By mid-February, the Antarctic winter was well on its way and it was time for our field season to end. Sarah and I flew back to Christchurch on a US Air Force C-17 and we were then lucky enough to spend a couple of week travelling around New Zealand before coming back to the U.S. As you might imagine, New Zealand is a very different environment from Antarctica and maybe even more stunningly beautiful. It was interesting adjusting back to a more normal society and being surprised at seeing normally mundane things that were not present in Antarctica, such as trees, dogs, children, and the night sky. Then, nearly immediately after arriving back in the U.S., the COVID crisis began and I was stuck in my apartment for a few months working on data analysis and writing.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”50371″ img_size=”large” add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”50372″ img_size=”large” add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Now that my 2nd summer is here and our lab has re-opened, I spend most days doing lab processing and analysis of the soil samples we collected in Antarctica and from other projects. My lab work consists of various chemical analyses of soils as well as DNA-based analyses of soil microbial communities. These DNA analyses involve isolation of DNA from the samples and lots of PCR (check out my growing collection of PCR plates below!). The lab work isn’t particularly exciting, but at least it is going smoothly thus far. Anyways, this might be the longest post card in history, so I’m going to stop it here (I’m impressed if you actually read this far!). I hope everyone is doing well during these challenging times and I hope to see everyone soon.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”50373″ img_size=”large” add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”50374″ img_size=”large” add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”50375″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]Ernie Osburn is an Interfaces of Global Change fellow working with Dr. Jeb Barrett in Virginia Tech’s Department of Biological Sciences. He is studying the impacts of Rhododendron removals on soil microbial communities and nitrogen cycling in Appalachian forests.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_separator style=”shadow”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Categories
Blog Geology Global Change IGC Interfaces of Global Change IGEP Postcards Research

Postcard from a Fellow: Junyao Kang in the lab with ancient rocks

Field work in North China, last summer

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By Junyao Kang |  July 10, 2020

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”47782″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]Hey folks! I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy. I’m Junyao Kang, a second year Ph.D. student from Department of Geosciences, and one of the newest IGC fellows. This summer, I’m working to analyze some 720-1000-million-years-old carbonate and shale samples, which I gathered in North China last summer. My research focuses on the oceanic environmental changes in deep time and their relationships with the evolution of life. To reconstruct the paleoenvironment and its related change, we rely on the sedimentary rocks forming at that time. The chemical and isotopic compositions of these rocks will tell us what has happened in the seawaters and sediments.

This time interval (about 539-1000 million years ago) is a critical one because it witnessed various eukaryotic innovations and even the origin of animals. Knowing the environmental context will help us better understand what has caused these major evolutionary events and also how the life co-evolved with the environment.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]As I analyze samples this summer, I’m most interested in different iron species incorporated into rocks, because iron is really sensitive to the redox (reduction-oxidation) conditions of the water column. When the water is oxic, iron is mostly incorporated as Fe silicates. However, as it becomes increasingly anoxic, the relative proportion of Fe oxides and Fe carbonates would increase in ferruginous conditions (anoxic and containing free ferrous iron), whereas the relative proportion of Fe sulfides would increase in sulfidic conditions (anoxic and containing free hydrogen sulfide, as is happening deep in the Black Sea right now). Hence, I’m using an iron sequential extraction method to analyze different species of iron preserved in the rocks, which will reflect contemporaneous oceanic redox conditions.

As for isotopic compositions in the samples, I mainly focus on the carbon and sulfur isotopes. Isotopic fractionation will happen during photosynthesis (carbon isotopes) and bacteria using organic matters to reduce sulfate (sulfur isotopes). So isotopic analysis will help us better understand the biogeochemical cycle of carbon and sulfur in ancient oceans. Furthermore, of these two processes, photosynthesis and sulfate reduction, one is directly related to oxygen production while another one actually prevents oxygen being consumed by organic matter oxidation. Therefore, isotopic composition can offer us some information about net oxygen production during that time.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”50203″ img_size=”large” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center” style=”vc_box_shadow_border”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Fortunately for me, the COVID pandemic didn’t change my plans too much. But it’s impossible that this pandemic has no effect on my research plan… and quarantined life sometimes drives me crazy :). Because I need to use facilities in different labs within or outside of our department and some of them are still closed, I have needed to modify my research timelines. Also, as a second year student, I’m still learning a lot of lab skills, but the current situation makes it difficult to have some in-situ learning. I hope others are doing well, despite these challenges![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”50204″ img_size=”500×400″ add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”50206″ img_size=”500×400″ add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”50233″ img_size=”500×400″ add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”50234″ img_size=”500×400″ add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”50211″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]Junyao Kang is an Interfaces of Global Change fellow in the Geosciences Department under the advisement of Dr. Shuhai Xiao. Junyao hopes to look to the past of the Earth history in order to understand the magnitude, causes, and consequences of global scale anoxia events, which will help to obtain a long view of dead zones, to make long-term predictions, and to develop sustainable strategies to mitigate environmental threats such as dead zones.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_separator style=”shadow”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Categories
Blog Interfaces of Global Change IGEP Research Student Spotlight

IGC Alumni Spotlight: Dr. Laura Schoenle

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July 7, 2020

[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”50077″ img_size=”200×260″ add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center” style=”vc_box_border”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]Dr. Laura Schoenle, an Interfaces of Global Change alumna of 2017, currently serves as Assistant Director and Coordinator of Undergraduate Research and Honors within the Office of Undergraduate Biology (OUB) at Cornell University.  She completed her PhD in Biological Sciences at Virginia Tech in May of 2017 under the mentorship of Dr. Ignacio Moore and Dr. Fran Bonier (Queen’s University).  Before coming to Virginia Tech, she was a high school science teacher in Arizona, teaching biology and environmental science.  Laura’s endeavors over the past 15 years provide her a wealth of knowledge and experience in the realms of academia and research.  A fundamental drive weaves throughout her academic and professional career paths – working closely with people and sharing her passion for the life sciences through education.

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]Laura began her academic journey at Cornell as an undergraduate studying biology with ambitions to become a veterinarian. Initially, she wasn’t too keen on intensive research but loved the field experiences gained in animal behavior and evolutionary biology. She really enjoyed communicating with other people, which led into education and a 1-year master’s program in teaching. Then located in the Mid-west, she taught advanced biology and environmental courses to upper high school students for three years. She truly appreciated the professional development opportunities available to support teachers wanting to give their students an authentic learning experience.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator style=”shadow”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]

See Laura’s IGC blog post (2016) on the National Center
for Science’s ‘Scientist in the Classroom’ program!

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”50160″ img_size=”200×70″][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator style=”shadow”][vc_column_text]One of the most influential endeavors during her time teaching was a GIS conservation research program through Arizona Partners in Science where she was paired with a professor from the University of Arizona. Their project was looking at wildfire burn severity around the mountains of Tucson and differences in bird populations across those areas. She took small groups of high schoolers out to learn how to do point counts and conduct daily field surveys one summer. She found that she really enjoyed the field work and research, which influenced her decision to pursue a graduate degree and ultimately join Dr. Ignacio Moore’s lab at Virginia Tech in 2012 to work on a collaborative project with Dr. Fran Bonier at Queen’s University.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]While at VT, Laura’s primary focus was looking at the interaction between stress and disease in wild birds, and how physiological stress influenced the response to disease. Her study subject was the red-winged blackbird and avian malaria. She wanted to know how and why individual birds may be better at resisting or tolerating infection. Similar to current events and research of the Covid-19 virus, she asked questions such as ‘can a hyper-reactive immune response be responsible for more serious disease symptoms?’.

Dr. Dana Hawley, who was on Laura’s dissertation committee, said “Laura’s integrative research questions were cutting-edge and, in many ways, were prescient for the current COVID situation. There are studies now emerging that tentatively show that dexamethasone, a drug that mimics stress hormones similar to those that Laura studied in birds, may help humans survive COVID-19 infection.  While these COVID studies still need full vetting, they build on some of the very same ideas that Laura tested in red-winged blackbirds. We still have very little understanding of why some individuals, whether birds or humans, are able to survive an infection relatively unscathed. Laura’s work probed the idea that stress hormones may be an important part of the story in explaining some of this individual variation, with stress hormones actually keeping the immune system in check in some cases.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”2/3”][vc_column_text]Laura was initially attracted to VT’s Interfaces of Global Change Interdisciplinary Graduate Education Program because she wanted to connect scientific training with practical applications, including policy and governance. She recalls the experiences from the Washington D.C. trip, science communication workshops and discussions in the IGC seminars as most impactful. The training opportunities and supportive network enabled her to become a better scientist with a broader interdisciplinary outlook. When asked what advice or insight she would share with current graduate students and IGC Fellows, Laura says, “I’ve found that the diversity in my interests and skills has been incredibly helpful in my career path. A teaching background, having trained a lot of undergrads myself, and spending effort on building my communication skills, as opposed to just focusing on being a good scientist and getting publications, has led to diverse opportunities. If you have time to try things out now, like outreach programs and mini-collaborations, you’ll learn about the career paths and options that may exist in your interest areas. Diversifying your skills as early as you can is valuable but also fun!”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”36793″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center” style=”vc_box_border”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Ignacio reminisces fondly on Laura’s time in the lab. “She had a combination of motivation and creativity that was a model for scientific success; and her presentations at conferences were amazing! She funded much of her work through grants and fellowships, including an EPA STaR fellowship. Her work was published in top journals and has received substantial attention from the scientific community in a short time. In fact, advising Laura was usually as simple as giving her some advice and getting out of her way!” While conducting her own graduate studies, she mentored multiple undergraduates who were often co-authors on papers. True to the pathway leading Laura to her current work at Cornell, at least one mentee was so enthused by the research project that she went onto graduate school herself to pursue a PhD.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]After graduating with her PhD from VT in 2017, Laura worked as a post-doc in a partnership between the University of South Florida and Hamilton College in New York. The position was part of an NSF grant between two PIs at the universities to examine how immune function changes with the body size of animals. She worked to set up the program and two different labs at each institution from scratch, including project design, research protocols, and training the teams of people who would do the data collection and processing. The project has analyzed data from over 300 species of mammals and generated approximately 20,000 data points, and Laura continues to be involved with the project in a limited capacity.

Coming back full circle to Cornell University in 2018, Laura’s present role as Assistant Director and Coordinator of Undergraduate Research and Honors at the Office of Undergraduate Biology is multifaceted, with an overarching goal to improve and support a positive undergraduate research environment for both students and faculty.  In addition to providing academic and career advisement to students, she directs all research related programming for the department, working to develop and implement programs that build interest and enable access to scientific research to over 1,200 biology undergraduates and hundreds of non-biology majoring students at Cornell.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”50099″ img_size=”large” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center” style=”vc_box_border”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]“One of the most rewarding aspects of my job is building relationships with students and being able to help them through the developmental process of their undergraduate careers,” says Laura.  As part of the advising team, she typically mentors 10 to 20 students at a given time and her counseling focuses on anything research or graduate school related. “I love when students reach out after we’ve worked together and let me know how they’ve resolved the challenges they were facing or how our work together shaped their path forward. Many students are dealing with personal and professional struggles, and I am happy to be able to support them. Others seek guidance for how to navigate the research environment or how to pursue a career in science. It’s exciting to hear where they are heading next and what they accomplish after graduating.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]These days at Cornell, almost half of the incoming freshmen enter college with an established understanding of scientific research, and some have had direct experience in high school.  To better engage with those less familiar with the scientific process, Laura and her team initiated a 5-week workshop series targeting first year students with no previous research experience.  Cohorts of 20 to 35 undergrads discuss the basics of research and how to begin investigation; they also tour labs on campus, work on drafting letters of interest to faculty, and use case studies to gain a sense for potential challenges.  Most of the students who want to pursue a research position have done so by the end of their sophomore year – awesome!

Laura’s impact at the OUB is widespread. One initiative has been working to improve the “Research for Credit” courses in the Biological Sciences unit by which students receive academic credit for their research efforts.  Making changes to the undergrad research application process has improved the experience for both students and faculty by clearly identifying goals and expectations for the projects up front, making the markers for success readily transparent and mutually attainable.  She’s also working with a colleague on campus to develop a faculty research manual to compile best practices for undergraduate research, mentoring strategies, funding sources and how to attract a diverse applicant pool of interested students.

For Laura, these projects have been fun and challenging.  “I work with departmental curriculum leaders and administrators, diverse faculty and student focus groups to help set the students and the lab teams up for a successful collaboration. As part of the Interfaces of Global Change program at VT, the seminar discussions focused on communication and working with stakeholders who have different priorities. I use those skills all the time and most directly”.

Laura’s experience and knowledge as both a research scientist and educator have solidified trusting relationships with faculty, too. “Having research experience gives you a layer of credibility when working with faculty and other scientists. Being able to understand where they’re coming from and the types of problems they’re dealing with is really helpful in being able to figure out what support they need to mentor undergraduates well.”[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Working as part of a dynamic and supportive working group has been a huge asset for Laura in her role at Cornell.  Part of a team of seven people in the Office of Undergraduate Biology, everyone carries a different specialization (Laura’s being primarily research) and they work together to collaborate and cross programmatic boundaries. “The working environment is a little different than that of your typical research lab, and it’s something that I really enjoy. The OUB team is highly collaborative and we work together to provide individual students and the whole biological sciences community with the tools they need to be successful academically, professionally, and personally.  I learn so much from my colleagues. Thanks to their support, every day I improve my ability to serve as an advisor and best guide our incredible, early career scientists.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”50100″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center” style=”vc_box_border”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_separator style=”dotted”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”50087″ img_size=”large” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”50084″ img_size=”large” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”50101″ img_size=”large” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”50103″ img_size=”large” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator style=”shadow”][/vc_column][/vc_row]