the Lab

What's doing in the lab?

Currently, I work with 6 Ph.D. students. All have diverse interests and backgrounds, although a high percentage are interested in otolith research. If you share overlapping interests with me, feel free to get in touch.

Cara Ewell Hodkin is a 5th year Ph.D. student. With degrees in Marine Science and Fisheries Biology, she has strong interests in fisheries and conservation. She is also engaged in indigenous ways of knowing. Her doctoral research will assess the relative importance of the Mohawk River vs. the Hudson River estuary as a spawning/rearing habitat for anadromous Blueback Herring; additionally, she will try new biogeochemical tracer methods to understand this species' life at sea.

Hadis Miraly is a 3rd year Ph.D. student hailing from Iran, where she did her Master's degree studying how to mark spines of sturgeon with an isotope of barium. Coming to ESF, she's interested in moving into fisheries ecology. She'll start off looking at whether a fish's eye lens chemistry can add some additional information about its life history, when combined with otolith chemistry.

Chris Nack (right) is an advanced Ph.D. student, looking to finish soon. A third generation shad fisherman, Chris has seen American Shad decline dramatically in the Hudson River estuary, and now he studies how climate change is affecting the fate of this once iconic sea-run fish.

Previously, Chris completed his MSc studying larval shad habitat use, and we realized that climate change was going to be important when two back-to-back hurricanes swept through the Hudson River watershed during his studies (!).

Justin Herne started his Master's in fall 2020, after working for several years in the Hudson River Fisheries Unit of the NYSDEC. Justin is in the Sloan Indigenous Graduate Partnership Program, and plans to conduct his research in the Mohawk Nation community of Akwesasne, focusing on "the leader fish" of the St. Lawrence River, the lake sturgeon.

Justin was my TA this fall in Fisheries. Here he is, looking at a sample, all masked up! We're very careful about Covid.