Senior undergraduate student at the University of Puerto Rico
Rio Piedras Campus
kenneth.moore@upr.edu
I am a third year undergraduate student majoring in Chemistry at the University of Puerto Rico Rio Piedras Campus. I am looking forward to enter a marine sciences program after completing my bachelor’s degree. My interest in marine sciences originates with my exposure to undergraduate research experiences. During my second year in college I worked in a research project under the guidance of Dr. Loretta Roberson at the Biology department, in which we monitored the levels of contaminants in the San Juan Estuary. During this research I discovered the hidden passion for working in the field that was inexplicably bound to the marine environment.
Here I began to realize that marine environments are beautiful and invaluable resource that needs to be protected and preserved; a contaminant free environment is necessary and important in order to protect all the species that inhabit them including those that are rare and endangered. Being born and raised in Puerto Rico I feel a deep responsibility to participate and work towards elevating environmental conscience in our society.
My whole life I have been working at my family’s hydroponic lettuce farm, which gives me a deep understanding of agricultural management and production. Therefore, my professional goals have evolved into a passion to merge my knowledge for both agriculture and marine biology and start my own aquaculture projects. I feel this is very important because Puerto Rico now imports more than 80% of the agricultural products we consume. This is how I Plan to leave my mark in Puerto Rico by increasing the agricultural production.