Current Research Blogs
Dawson's Blog
Dawson Little, graduate student
1 June 2026
Hi y'all,
May was a busy but rewarding month, with a lot of my time focused on thesis organization, data management, field planning, and continued development of the molecular side of the river otter project. Compared to earlier parts of the year that were heavily centered around lab work, this month felt much more focused on coordination and analysis planning as different components of the project started coming together.
One highlight this month was traveling to Bellingham for Scholars Week, where Ellie Taylor and I gave a collaborative presentation related to our work. It was a great opportunity to share project progress, hear feedback from other students and faculty, and reconnect with folks at Western. Events like Scholars Week are always a good reminder of how many interesting projects and disciplines are happening simultaneously across the university, and it was exciting getting to contribute to that broader research community.
Another major focus this month was organizing qPCR sex identification data, extraction records, and sample prioritization planning for upcoming metabarcoding work. I also spent a good amount of time refining methods write-ups and comparing approaches used in previous marine mammal molecular ecology studies and theses. At the same time, I’ve continued working through hard part identifications from river otter scat samples as we move closer toward integrating multiple components of the diet analysis together. Progress on the hard part work has been slower than I originally hoped simply because of how time intensive and detail oriented the identification process can be, but it has still been rewarding seeing the dataset continue to grow and become more complete. While this type of organizational and methods work is not always the most exciting part of research, it has been really helpful for thinking more critically about the overall structure of the project and identifying areas that still need clarification.
This month also brought some discouraging news regarding the molecular portion of the project. We heard back from the contractor, and the project timeline has been pushed back once again while estimated costs for the sequencing and molecular work have increased substantially. As a result, I have started looking into securing additional funding opportunities to help support the next phase of the project. While setbacks like these can definitely be frustrating, they are also a good reminder of how dependent large collaborative research projects can be on funding, logistics, and outside timelines.
Another major component of this month involved preparing for upcoming invasive European green crab trapping efforts on the Olympic Peninsula. A surprising amount of coordination goes into these types of field efforts before anyone even gets into the field, including organizing personnel, equipment, transportation, camping logistics, and deployment strategies across multiple estuarine systems. It has been exciting seeing these efforts start coming together as field season ramps up.
Overall, May felt like another important transition month for the project. While there is still a lot of work ahead, it has been rewarding seeing continued progress across both the molecular and components of the research. I’m especially looking forward to the upcoming field season and continuing to build datasets that will hopefully contribute to a better understanding of both invasive green crab impacts and the ecological role river otters may play within these estuarine systems.
Best,
Dawson
Ellie's Blog
Ellie Taylor, undergraduate student
1 June 2026
Hi everyone,
This month has been incredibly exciting and rewarding as I’ve had the opportunity to start sharing this project with the broader scientific community. I traveled with other managers in the lab to Simon Fraser University to present my poster at the Northwest Student Chapter of the Society for Marine Mammalogy Conference, which was a fantastic experience. It was great to meet and talk with other students and researchers working across so many areas of marine mammal science. I had some really valuable conversations about molecular methods and estuary ecology, and I came away with new perspectives that will be helpful as the project nears the end.
I also gave two presentations during Scholars Week, which provided another great opportunity to practice communicating both the technical and ecological aspects of this work. Preparing for these presentations really highlighted how much progress the project has made over the past several months, from troubleshooting primers and optimizing qPCR conditions to finally generating large-scale datasets. It has been exciting to see the project evolve from protocol development into something that is beginning to produce insight into meaningful ecological patterns.
In the lab, I’ve continued running qPCR plates consistently and am getting very close to finishing data collection. At this point, I only have three plates left to run, which feels like a huge milestone after months of optimization and troubleshooting. As more data comes together, I’ve started separating the sex identification results by latrine to look for patterns in site use between males and females. So far, most latrines appear to show some degree of sex bias, although the differences are not especially strong at this stage. It will be interesting to see whether these trends become clearer once the full dataset is analyzed and potential repeat individuals are accounted for.
Alongside the lab work and presentations, we’ve also started spending more time writing the manuscript for this project. Beginning to organize the methods, results, and broader ecological context into a manuscript has been a really exciting step and makes the project feel increasingly tangible as a complete body of research. I’m excited to keep digging into the results and see how these patterns develop as the project moves toward completion.
Cheers,
Ellie
Anna's Blog
Anna Gilboard, undergraduate student
1 June 2026
Hi everyone!
This month has been an exciting one for my capstone project because I finally had the opportunity to start sharing my research with others. In early May, I traveled to Simon Fraser University in British Columbia to present my research at the Northwest Student Society for Marine Mammalogy (NWSSMM) Conference. This was my first time presenting this project at a scientific conference, and it was a great experience. I had the chance to talk with students, researchers, and professors who share an interest in marine mammal science and conservation. Presenting my poster helped me think about my project in new ways and gave me valuable feedback on both my research questions and the way I communicate my findings. A few weeks later, I also presented my research during Scholars Week here at Western. It was exciting to share my work with members of the WWU community and reflect on how much the project has developed since I first started working with the stranding dataset. Looking back at where I began and comparing it to the analyses, maps, and figures I have now has been a rewarding reminder of how much progress can happen over the course of a year.
Now that both poster presentations are behind me, my focus has shifted to preparing for my Honors Capstone presentation on June 10. Unlike a poster session, this presentation gives me the opportunity to tell the full story of the project, from how I became interested in marine mammal research to the questions that motivated my study and the patterns I discovered in more than a decade of harbor seal pup stranding records from San Juan County. Preparing this talk has challenged me to think not only about the results, but also about the broader significance of the project and the message that I want to leave people with.
As graduation rounds the corner, it's been exciting to see all of the different pieces of this project come together. I'm looking forward to sharing my work one more time at my Honors presentation and reflecting on everything I've learned along the way.
Until next time,
Anna
Siena's Blog
Siena Gorohoff, undergraduate student
1 June 2026
Hello! It’s absolutely crazy the quarter is almost over! This has been my last quarter at western and honestly one of the best. My classes have been really fun, and I’ve been able to focus a lot on getting a paper written for the cetacean stranding research project with Chloe as a capstone project. This paper will hopefully give us a good guideline to use when we write the final paper soon together. It’s been really interesting going back and looking at the work we did at the beginning of this project, remembering all the work we did for the proposal, before we even had our data, is crazy to look back on. Seeing how far this project has come is amazing, and I’ve learned so much from being able to do this. I’m so grateful I've had the opportunity to work in this lab and get to do a research project about something I’m so interested in. It was so fun to get to talk to people about our work at the conference and then again at scholar's week.
I’m so glad I was able to present a poster with Chloe at the marine mammals conference earlier this month. It was so cool to visit another college (Simon Fraser is an insanely beautiful campus!) and meet other marine mammal research students. I loved learning about everyone’s work and seeing work from our lab that I’ve heard about in poster form and getting to learn so much more about it was so cool!
A few of us also visited the Vancouver Aquarium after the conference on Sunday, which was so cool! They had so many different pinnipeds and we got to watch the sea lion training show. I also saw a live seahorse for the first time which was pretty crazy (even though it’s not a marine mammal).
I’m pretty sure the end of this quarter is going to be very busy; I have a bunch of final projects coming up and I’ll be moving out of my apartment after finals. I’m excited to be finished with the capstone project and have that as something we can reference when we write our final paper, it’s been really nice to get outside feedback on the research since I know I’ve become a bit too familiar with the work and have started to forget what is common knowledge and what’s not. Overall, it’s been great and it will feel so good to have this step of the project done soon.
Wishing everyone a great end of spring quarter and a huge congrats to all the graduates!!
Siena
Mallory's Blog
Mallory Stonier, undergraduate student
1 June 2026
Hello everyone,
We have finished another year of Smolt data collection! I am so proud of all our observers, leads, and of course Camryn and myself for such a great season. This year marks the first time that we have seen whales on Smolt observations, and according to my memory, I believe we have had the highest gosling survival rate that we have witnessed thus far. One of the gosling families even adopted an orphaned gosling from the Whatcom Humane Society Wildlife Rehabilitation Center (WHS WRC)!
Last month, Camryn and I presented at the Northwest Student Chapter of the Society for Marine Mammalogy (NWSSMM) 2026 Conference, Scholar’s Week, and a Biology Showcase. The NWSSMM conference was such an amazing learning experience, and we even got to meet Kyra Bankhead, who previously conducted research here in the MMEL. We learned a lot about marine mammal toxicology and enjoyed visiting Simon Fraser University. The Brown Lab for Marine Mammal Ecotoxicology members were wonderful hosts.
It was a lot of fun to present our preliminary results and receive feedback from other scientists, and we have a lot of ideas on where to go with data analysis and the final year of Smolt observations in spring 2027. We now have 4 years of data to analyze, and this year’s release schedule may give us more insight into the effect of smolt density and release timing because the Bellingham Technical College Hatchery released a much smaller amount in only one release. Once finals are finished, the next task is to complete data input and rerun our current R code with all four years of data to see where we should investigate next. I am super excited to work with the data further and to find out how a smaller release has affected seal foraging behavior.
This summer, I will also be interning with the WHS WRC, which I cannot wait to begin. It has been a blessing to be able to volunteer with them for the last few years and I cannot wait to learn more from the staff and be able to work with new animal species in need. Additionally, I am taking one online GUR course and will have lots of data work and manuscript writing to work on in the meantime.
I am growing increasingly sad to see so many lab members graduating (23!!) but I am super excited to see all the wonderful things they are going to accomplish. We will celebrate this month at an end-of-the-year event, which will be such a fun way to see everyone and send them off before graduation. I will be taking over managing the Whatcom Creek project with Rachel Ager, who has been a lovely scientist to work with, and I am excited to have such a great researcher to work with next year. Chloe and Siena are helping us set up to manage summer observations and preparing us to manage the project in the fall. While the end of the academic year is always bittersweet, I cannot wait to see what the future holds and begin new endeavors.
Sealiously excited,
Mallory
Bea's Blog
Bea Macagno, undergraduate student
1 June 2026
Hi folks!
May started off with the NWSSMM conference. Us attendees had a great time learning about ongoing research at institutions including Simon Fraser University, Oregon State University and University of Washington. We made valuable connections, and Luke and I even won a prize for best poster! The next day some of us visited the Vancouver Aquarium. They have incredible staff working with non-releasable marine mammals: we got to attend an educational program where they demonstrated how they use positive reinforcement to train behaviors for voluntary husbandry. Overall, the aquarium has great exhibits and signage for conservation education.
Continuing the theme of public conservation education, I had the opportunity to visit the Bronx Zoo when I was in New York City visiting my sister. My favorite zoo attraction was the Wild Asia Monorail, which takes visitors over large enclosures that included multiple species of Asian deer, as well as endangered Przewalski’s horses, elephants, rhinos, and tigers. I think it is very valuable for researchers to engage with accessible public programs to inform how to effectively communicate the impact of their research. For me, visiting zoos, aquariums or wildlife reserves reignites my passion as I can directly connect with the purpose of my hard work and the big picture goal of my research.
In lab news, I have been spending a lot of time preparing scat samples and extracting DNA for my Wild EcoHealth internship, which continues to be an incredibly enjoyable and fulfilling position. Luke and I have added mtDNA haplotype data to round out our analysis before we begin the paper writing process. Outside of lab, we have had some amazing weather in Bellingham, so I have been able to take my paddleboard out a couple times and look forward to more nice days ahead!
Ciao!
Bea
Camryn's Blog
Camryn Sumrok, undergraduate student
1 June 2026
Greetings!
As I write one of my final blog entries, I find myself reflecting on just how much my experience in MMEL has meant to me. It feels bittersweet knowing that my undergraduate journey is beginning to wind down, especially after two incredible years of research, fieldwork, and learning. It has been such an honor and a pleasure to work alongside every member of this lab!
This past month has been a busy but rewarding one. I continued my lab work with Bea, where we processed double batches of pinniped scat samples for DNA extraction. It has been exciting to contribute to a project that combines molecular techniques with marine mammal research, and I have gained valuable laboratory experience through this work.
The Smolt Project also came to a close this month. Looking back, it is amazing to think about everything that went into this project over the past year. From early morning observations to countless hours of data collection, data entry, scheduling, and coordination, the project provided valuable opportunities to develop my leadership, field research, and problem-solving skills. Managing and coordinating a team of more than 30 people helped me build connections not only as a lab mate but also as a leader. As a project manager, I dedicated a significant amount of my time to ensuring everything ran smoothly, and I am incredibly proud of what Mallory and I accomplished, along with our hardworking research assistants!
One of the highlights of the month was presenting our Smolt Project research at Scholars Week. We had the opportunity to share our preliminary findings with students, faculty, and community members while discussing the connections between pinnipeds, salmonids, and humans in the Salish Sea. We also traveled to Canada to present at the Northwest Student Chapter of the Society for Marine Mammalogy conference. It was absolutely fascinating to learn about the diverse marine mammal research being conducted by students and scientists across the region. I had the opportunity to network with researchers whose work I have admired throughout my undergraduate career, which was incredibly meaningful. Both presentations were extremely rewarding and provided my first real experiences presenting scientific research. These opportunities strengthened my confidence as a young scientist and further showed me how valuable it is to communicate science with others.
As I move closer to graduation, I am finding myself beyond grateful for everything MMEL has given me. The opportunities, mentorship, friendships, and experiences I have gained through this lab have shaped me in ways I never expected. While there is still one more chapter to write before my undergraduate journey officially comes to a close, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on how magical this experience has been. I look forward to sharing one final update soon, but until then, thank you to everyone who has supported me along the way!
Seals and Salmon,
Camryn
Zoe's Blog
Zoe Hosford, graduate student
1 June 2026
I genuinely don’t know where May went.
This month has felt like a blur of thesis revisions, conference travel, presentations, PowerPoint slides, coffee, more PowerPoint slides, and repeatedly telling myself that I was almost done.
The month kicked off with the Northwest Student Society for Marine Mammalogy Conference at Simon Fraser University. It was great to spend a day hearing about the incredible research being conducted by students across the Pacific Northwest, catching up with familiar faces, and getting a reminder that there is an entire world of marine mammal science outside of my own dataset. One of my favorite parts of conferences is getting to see the variety of questions people are asking and the creative ways they are approaching them. I always leave feeling inspired and usually with a much longer list of papers I want to read.
A few weeks later, I participated in Scholars Week at WWU, where I presented a condensed version of my thesis research. Trying to summarize two years of work into just a few minutes was definitely a challenge, but it ended up being one of the highlights of the month. So much of my graduate school experience has happened quietly behind a computer screen. Between coding, statistical analyses, writing, revisions, and countless cups of coffee, progress often felt slow and difficult to see day to day. Preparing presentations this month gave me a rare opportunity to step back and appreciate just how much this project, and I, have grown over the past two years.
Most of May, however, was spent getting my thesis defense draft across the finish line. Following my pre defense meeting, I worked through committee feedback, completed additional analyses, updated figures and tables, revised sections of the discussion, and spent more hours than I care to admit staring at model outputs. Every time I thought I was finished, I found one more sentence to improve, one more figure to adjust, or one more analysis I wanted to double check. Of course, science writing is never really finished, and there will still be revisions ahead as we continue working toward publication, but getting the thesis defense ready felt like a major milestone.
One of the biggest moments of the month was officially tabling my thesis with the department. Seeing the defense draft sitting on my screen was honestly a strange feeling. For so long, the thesis has existed as a constantly evolving collection of ideas., analyses, comments, figures, revisions, and half finished notes. There was always another section to write or another comment to address. Looking at the completed defense draft, I found myself thinking less about the document itself and more about everything that went into creating it
At the same time, I have been building and refining my defense presentation. In many ways, preparing the presentation has felt completely different from writing the thesis itself. The thesis is every detail, every caveat, every analysis, and every result. The presentation is the story.
One of the biggest challenges has been deciding what not to include. After spending two years immersed in this project, it is surprisingly difficult to distill everything down into a 40-minute presentation. There are analyses I spent weeks working on, figures I revised countless times, and results that felt incredibly important while I was deep in the project. I have spent an embarrassing amount of time moving boxes around in PowerPoint, deciding whether figures should be slightly larger, redesigning maps, reorganizing slides, and convincing myself that I absolutely needed to remake a slide for the seventh time.
Preparing the presentation has forced me to zoom back out and look at the bigger picture. For the last two years, I have spent so much time focused on individual analyses, model outputs, and specific results that I rarely stopped to appreciate the broader story that was emerging. Building the defense presentation has been the first time in a while that I have been able to step back and see how all of the pieces fit together.
As I worked on the presentation throughout the month, I found myself reflecting quite a bit on the last two years. When I first moved from Maine to Washington to start graduate school, defending a thesis felt impossibly far away. At the time, I was just trying to figure out how to navigate graduate school, learn new analytical techniques, and convince R to cooperate with me. Now, somehow, my thesis is tabled with the department, my presentation is nearly finished, and my defense is only days away.
Looking back, there have been plenty of highs and lows. There were analyses that did not work, models that raised more questions than answers, and moments where I felt completely stuck. There were also moments where things finally clicked into place, when patterns started emerging from the data, when a figure finally looked the way I wanted it to, or when a result told a story I was not expecting to find.
Research rarely follows the path you imagine when you first start a project. Some of the most interesting parts of this thesis came from questions I was not originally planning to ask and results I was not expecting to find. In many ways, that is what I have come to love most about research. The uncertainty can be frustrating, but it also creates opportunities for discovery.
More than anything, this month has made me realize just how much has happened since I started this degree. The thesis itself is obviously a huge part of that, but so are the people I have met, the opportunities I have had, the conferences I have attended, the classes I have taught, and all of the experiences that happened along the way. Somewhere between moving across the country, learning mixed models, teaching labs, rerunning analyses for the hundredth time, and rewriting the same discussion section over and over, graduate school stopped feeling like something I was just trying to get through and started feeling like something I am genuinely proud of.
I have also been reflecting on how fortunate I have been to be part of the Marine Mammal Ecology Lab. Over the past two years, I have had the opportunity to learn from incredible advisors, collaborate with supportive lab mates, teach students, attend conferences, and be part of a community of people who are genuinely excited about science. Those experiences have shaped my graduate experience just as much as the research itself.
As May comes to a close, my defense is only a few days away. It is hard to believe that a project that has occupied so much of my time, energy, and brain space for the last two years is finally reaching this stage. There is definitely some nervous energy mixed in with the excitement, but more than anything, I am feeling grateful. Grateful for the people who supported me, the opportunities I have had, the challenges that pushed me to grow, and the chance to contribute a small piece to our understanding of marine mammal ecology.
For now, my focus is on putting the finishing touches on my presentation, trying not to overthink every slide, and getting ready to share the work I have spent the last two years living and breathing.
By the time next month’s update rolls around, I will hopefully be writing as a newly minted M.Sc. and starting to shift my focus from finishing this chapter to getting ready for what is next.
Till next time,
Zoe
Luke's Blog
Luke Shrader, undergraduate student
1 June 2026
Hello folks,
May was a very rewarding month, bringing about several research presentations and a new direction for my project with Bea Macagno examining the spatial population genetic structure of harbor seals (Phoca vitulina) in the Puget Sound and Olympic Coast. Last month, I mentioned our upcoming presentation at the Northwest Student Society of Marine Mammalogy Conference at Simon Fraser University, and my update is that it went very well. In fact, we won the best poster award, after successfully crafting a collaborative elevator pitch and answering detailed questions about our analysis. I also presented our research alone at WWU’s Scholar’s Week poster symposium the following week, which contrasted the conference nicely, since I was forced to be thorough in my explanations as most WWU students are not familiar with marine mammal ecology and population dynamics. Both experiences contributed to my increasing level of comfortability with technical presentations.
The new direction in which our project is headed makes use of mtDNA data collected by grad student Alex Otto, which we will analyze in a similar way to our original GTseq data. Our current goal is to create a multinomial logistic distance-based regression for haplotype data. Essentially, we’re aiming to measure the likelihood that two samples are in the same haplotype group given the geographic distance between them. As always, I’m excited to make some inferences with Bea and our advisor Dr. Dietmar Schwarz after the analyses.
In other news, I’m nearly graduated! My courses are wrapping up well, and I’m excited for the next chapter, which for me will be an REU program at the Montana Predictive Range Ecology Lab at MSU this summer. I’m simultaneously grateful for my time at WWU and ready to move on from undergrad. The future is uncertain, but I’m certain it holds great things for us all.
The very best,
Luke Shrader
Chloe's Blog
Chloe Bentley, undergraduate student
1 June 2026
Great to be back, I can't believe May has already flown by!
Siena and I had two opportunities in May to present our research. Our conference in Canada was amazing. We got to hear from lots of amazing marine mammal researchers. There were doctorate students speaking on subjects from animal behavior to toxicology. All very fascinating, and we appreciated all their feedback on our poster. It was great to be in a space full of marine mammal nerds from all over the continent! Two of our MMEL lab members also won the poster session, whoop whoop go them!!
Scholars' Week was also a great experience to see what our peers at WWU were researching. Siena and I were able to practice answering questions our community had about our research. We loved seeing people interact with our work. It was very valuable to us to get feedback from other scientists but more importantly people who live around the Salish Sea and can connect more directly to what we are working on.
Whatcom Creek is doing great! Activity is started to wind down a bit as we head into Summer. Siena and I are also transitioning into next quarter by handing off the torch to Rachel and Mallory. We are super excited to get them into WC Manager positions, we know they are going to do amazing! Graduation is coming up fast and it is unbelievable how many of our lab members are graduating. All of our new lab members have been really engaged this quarter and it's been great getting to know everyone further. We have an end of the year party coming up and I can't wait to update y'all on that next month. Until then!
Seals and Salmon,
Chloe