The SciFund Challenge came to a close last night. In total, more than 15 projects, including mine, were fully funded! More than $45,000 was raised for scientific research!

My minimum funding goal for this project was $3,000, an amount which would have allowed me to use stable isotope analysis to study the feeding ecology of shark species in two different habitats in south Florida, processing a total of 300 samples. This represented the minimum I’d need to perform one of my Ph.D. dissertation chapters. With the SciFund challenge now closed, I can report that (after credit card processing fees and Experiment.com’s fee), I will receive almost $8,000, more than twice my minimum goal and enough to process 800 samples from five different locations throughout south Florida!

I want to thank everyone who donated to my project or helped spread the word about it (it was featured by io9 and Smithsonian Magazine, as well as countless Facebook posts and tweets). 117 people donated to my project, and 12 of them will be joining our lab for a day of shark research. Thanks also to the SciFund Challenge and Experiment.com teams!