JULY 2023
Holland's Blog
Holland Conwell, undergraduate student
1 July 2023
Welcome to my final blog post!
It has been an absolutely surreal month, and I still cannot believe that I am now a WWU alum. It was quite the race to the finish getting all my final materials submitted before graduation, but I’m on the other side of it all now! I presented my Honors capstone presentation at the start of the month, and I was blown away by the support that I got from my fellow labmates, friends, and family. It was so special to be able to share my research with so many important people in my life, especially for a project that I started on as a field assistant back in my freshman year. I then finished off my final Honors requirements with a reflection on my time in the Marine Mammal Ecology lab (which will soon be found at the link below). Recalling my experiences in the lab from freshman to senior year truthfully brought me to tears. My college experience was shaped in so many ways by this very lab and the people in it, and I feel so lucky to have been a part of this community for as long as I was. I started in the lab as a timid freshman who had no clue about all the adventures that I would have over 4 years: from wintery Whatcom Creek observations to messy scat work, many conferences, managing a field team, and even assisting harbor seal captures with Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
To add to the craziness of this month, the day after graduation, I accepted a job as the newest DNA Manipulation and Sequencing Junior Specialist for the Paleogenomics Lab at UC Santa Cruz! I’m so unbelievably excited to join the Paleogenomics Lab and move to Santa Cruz soon. I haven’t had to start from scratch in a new city since I originally moved to Bellingham from Houston, and I’m stoked for all the adventures to come! I’m going to miss Bellingham so dearly, but I can’t wait to visit and watch the new undergraduate research leads take the lab by storm! A huge thank you to the Marine Mammal Ecology Lab, I’ve sincerely enjoyed my time in this lab (and will surely still be in communication about my ongoing papers). Truly, I am grateful beyond words.
Signing off!
Holland
Jasper's Blog
Jasper McCutcheon, undergraduate student
1 July 2023
Hi, my name is Jasper McCutcheon, and I am the new Log Pond project manager taking over for Holland Conwell. I am a third-year undergraduate student here at Western Washington University majoring in biology with an emphasis in ecology, evolution, and organismal biology. I first joined this project in June 2022 as a research assistant observing seals at the Waterfront and Log Pond.
I am very excited to be the new project manager and to work on an independent project exploring anthropogenic impacts on harbor seals. This summer, research assistants will be gathering data for both the long-term data and my research project. My primary research question is how do different noise levels affect the time harbor seals spend surfaced (head above the water) at the Waterfront and Log Pond during the summer of 2023? Harbor seals exhibit important behavioral interactions while surfaced, specifically between mothers and pups, which anthropogenic noise could be impacting. My project will attempt to determine if this is occurring with our local seal populations.
In addition to this research, I am currently in Lewes, Delaware participating in the University of Delaware’s Marine Sciences Research Experience for Undergraduates. As a result, I am running the Log Pond Project virtually through mid-August. While here, I am working on a research project looking at the local forage fish populations. For this project, I have two main questions: One, how do these fish populations move through Canary Creek tributaries? And two, how are they impacted by environmental factors (dissolved oxygen, salinity, temperature, and tide height)? I will be attempting to answer these questions by performing a repeated mark-recapture study this summer.
Stay tuned for future blog posts with updates on both these projects!
Jasper
Alexandrea's Blog
Alexandra Otto, graduate student
1 July 2023
Hi yall,
Summer is finally here and it does not feel real! So much occurred in spring quarter that it was hard to believe there was an end in sight. Now that classes have ended and teaching has stopped (for now), the whole rest of the summer is open and free for research and I cannot be more excited. Fortunately, I’m very thankful to have received summer funding from Western’s Biology Department, Western’s Office of Research and Sponsored Programs (RSP), and the North Cascades Audubon Society! A summer dedicated to research without other distractions is what science dreams are made of!
As for thesis work, we now have our small team of extraction trained undergraduates! The third round of GT-Sequencing (GT-Seq) also came back and with much better on-target genotyping percent then the last round. Collaborating with Dr. Erin D'Agnese from WildEcoHealth, Dr. Casey Clark from WDFW, and the entire WDFW Genetics Lab has been extremely helpful, especially in these last months optimizing the GT-Seq panel. The panel is in a good place, and now I will try taking lead in the next optimization run to enhance the panel for more polymorphic SNPs and population centered questions. This includes tackling a whole lot of coding to pick more primers and SNP markers. Last month’s small bioinformatics steps were just the start! Fortunately, Dr. D'Agnese and Dr. Zinkgraf have been incredibly supportive committee members for all things code related! I’m excited to dive into the primers and SNP work. Other than the panel update, I have many other things on the project “to-do list” I need to tackle!
Shorter blog post this month but I wanted to end on a bitter-sweet farewell to the graduated undergraduate lab managers, Maddie and Holland! I had the pleasure to work alongside them this past year and watch them both present their Honors presentations highlighting all the amazing research projects they led over the years! It has been such a joy getting to know them both inside and outside the lab, leading weekly MMEL meetings this past year together, having weekly manager meetings, working out in the field together, attending conferences together, and so much more. Maddie and Holland are both such inspiring women in STEM and powerhouses when it comes to research and work ethic. Working with them especially in this first year of graduate school was a special time. I sure am going to miss them!
Till next month,
Alexandrea
Victoria's Blog
Victoria Vinecke, graduate student
1 July 2023
Hello again!
It is warming up in beautiful Bellingham and summer research is in full swing! I have been able to spend a lot more time in the lab due to a less busy schedule!
Recently I have been testing DNA primers which I might use for DNA sequencing down the line. As of now, there seems to be some tweaking that needs to be done to ensure the primers are working correctly. My plan for this month is to continue working with the primers and hopefully find some answers to the roadblocks I have recently run into.
I have been working closely with Kameran Rodriguez (who has been a research assistant with the lab for the past year and recently was promoted to lab manager) while conducting lab work and photo processing. Kameran was able to ID two of the seals I sampled from last fall which is really exciting! I plan on going through my ID’ed seals to potentially start assigning sex to individuals which can provide clues into male and female foraging success!
Lastly, during the school year, I received a scholarship to attend three courses at the summer institute in statistical genetics at UW which will be held in July! I will be attending courses surrounding the topics of population genetics, applied population genetic tools, and statistical genetics this month which I am extremely excited for! I am always looking for supplemental learning opportunities to strengthen my genetic understanding and I believe these classes will provide knowledge that can be applied directly to my thesis! I am extremely thankful to have an amazing opportunity like this and I am excited to give an update on how it went next month!
Until then,
Victoria
Madison's Blog
Madison Gard, undergraduate student
5 July 2023
My last blog for the Marine Mammal Ecology Lab! It’s bittersweet sitting down to even write this out. Graduation was a few weeks ago on June 10. My family came up from Tucson, Arizona to celebrate with me! It was super special getting to share my Honors Capstone presentation on the BTC Smolt Release and Commencement Ceremony with them. A lot of them realized what I’ve been up to here in Bellingham, and it was awesome to make them feel proud of my accomplishments.
Vic and Alex came to the ceremony too, and they surprised me with a super thoughtful gift to commemorate the time we had in MMEL together. I’m definitely going to miss the lab family that I’ve gotten to learn and grow with over the last few years, but I know we’ll stay in touch as we branch out into our careers. Just yesterday I had brunch with Brianna Hull, my co manager during winter quarter to catch up at Little Cheerful! (Side note - if you haven’t gotten the hash browns or biscuits and gravy from there, they’re life changing.)
The capstone presentation itself went super well! I really enjoyed sharing the entire process of the project and some preliminary results with friends, family, mentors, and researchers that contributed to the study. We filled the room with friendly and supportive faces! Dr. Alejandro’s introduction to me was very thoughtful and I’m incredibly grateful to have had such a supportive and knowledgeable mentor during my time at WWU.
While I might not be taking credit with the Marine Mammal Ecology Lab or a student at Western Washington University anymore, my work isn’t done. I feel very close to a completed qPCR manuscript to submit for publication. Once I’m settled into a better routine, I very much look forward to finishing up this project! I also will continue to analyze the results of the BTC Smolt Release study and collaborate with Dr. Alejandro to draft and eventually publish our findings. This will take longer to accomplish, but I feel motivated to see it through to completion.
Moving into the summer, I caught up on some much-needed rest after the whirlwind of graduation. I’ve found a townhouse to rent in Seattle’s Ballard area and will be moving over the next month or so. I’m also in the ~super fun~ process of job hunting at the moment. I have a few interviews lined up for temporary positions to work as a barista in a coffee shop or crew member at Trader Joe’s in the meantime. I’ll plan to work and collect paychecks while I find a more permanent, environmental research position in Seattle. I’m still running rafting trips on the Skagit River for Triad River Tours, although our season will end sometime in August or September. Every day is an adventure out in Marblemount, and I love the friends I’ve made with my coworkers camping each night together.
Life post-graduation is everything people promised it would be - a relaxing lack of routine that is full of existential moments and questions. I just keep reminding myself I don’t have to figure everything out today, or even tomorrow. The right positions and career moves will present themselves when they’re meant to, all I need to do is keep looking for the next big opportunity. I'll be sure to keep in touch moving into the future and all its big question marks!
Rafting on the Skagit River.