Amanda Laughlin is an incoming PhD student in the Biological Oceanography division of Department of Oceanography at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, working with Kyle Edwards. She is a recipient of the Uehiro Graduate Student Fellowship which will support her research on viral decay in a wide range of marine virus populations. Her interest in virology is a result of a full-time research assistant position at the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Vaccine Research where she studied pathogenic viruses. With the assistance of her mentors, Amanda aims to determine if condition changes affect the decay rate of eukaryotic viruses as well as the virus-phytoplankton relationship.