Week One

It has begun! 

I cannot believe I am living in Homer and attending SBB orientation and classes. I still recall my sixth grade teacher pulling me aside sometime after our field trip to Salem, OR explaining that if I wanted to learn more about the environment and changing laws, I could look into 'natural resource management' and a school called the University of Alaska Anchorage with a program I'd love. We'd been trying to overturn House Bill 4040 in 2015, which would take Oregon's gray wolves off the endangered species list and reduce penalties for hunting or lethal livestock protection. Nine years later, I actually bumped into this teacher in my hometown and got to tell her I'd made it!! 

I'm thrilled to have met the ten other women from all over America seeking an OEC in Conservation Ecology, plus the incredible KPC staff here at the Kachemak Bay campus who keep this program running year after year. Some of the girls and I have already gone for walks on the Homer Spit, frisbee-throwing on Bishops Beach, spent ages thumbing through the archives of Old Inlet Bookstore, and tried the burritos at Save-U-More. All suggestions for local activities are more than welcome! 

If you aren't familiar with Homer, with its jagged, glacier-coated mountains, it's nestled on the tip of the Kenai Peninsula, bordering Pacific waters connect the Cook Inlet to the Gulf of Alaska. Homer, Seldovia, and other tiny towns in this part of Alaska are absolutely vital to our understanding of many ecosystem functions, as it provides scientists with a base to call home between harmful algae blooms, environmental DNA (eDNA) testing, glacial assessments, rockfish stock surveys, beluga tracking, salmon migrations, and more. 

Clockwise from top left: Young aggregating anemones, Anthopleura elegantissima, feed on plankton and small fish by using their tentacles to bring food to their mouth, which is also where they excrete waste. Asterias amurensis, a purple orange star, on a pillar covered in blue mussels, Mytilus edulis in Homer, AK. Two Homer, AK residents fish off the Homer Spit. 

While the possibilities of studies are literally endless, my mentor for the semester-- marine ecologist Dr. Ross Whippo-- is going to focus my growth on continuing to collect data for a study on coastal wrack around the Kachemak Bay and professional development within the scientific field. I have a lot to learn from Dr. Whippo, and with just a day of intern preparation under my belt, I can confidently say he's encouraged me to fully commit to the idea of pursuing a graduate degree. I had been hesitant but curious about grad school, but after a long talk where he graciously shared his full undergraduate and graduate experience and how to obtain financial support for these years of research, I am more optimistic than ever that this is a possibility I want to go after. 

At the same time as my internship, I'm working remotely for postdoctoral researcher Dr. Monica Brandhuber and my BIOL A474 Ecotoxicology professor, Dr. Patrick Tomco, to continue progress on a polar bear lipidomics dataset. I had the joy of meeting with Dr. Brandhuber this past week to discuss my tasks (which include identifying the lipids' category, class, subclass, and LIPID MAPS ID from their molecular configuration) and have enjoyed beginning this project for credit under UAA's BIOL/CHEM A498 Independent Research course. 

On Wednesday morning, I had over two feet of snowfall in my quarter-mile driveway and despite learning this just before heading to campus, I still shoveled quick enough that I made it into class EARLY! For class we attended the virtual Pacific Right Whale Symposium, with many speakers from NOAA and organizations dedicated to learning more about one of the most elusive Mysticeti. 

I'm so stoked for a semester of hands-on learning in the most beautiful place I've ever seen! 

These courses and fieldwork opportunities are not going to be easy, but how lucky am I to face these challenges? As Dr. Ken Goldman said on the first day of class: "there is a lot of potential doom and gloom [in conservation science]... but it's potential. We've got to come at this with an uplifting view, a powerful view; we can do something!"