SFOS Newsletter
Fall 2007
Faculty and Staff Standouts
Students in FISH 293: Fisheries Techniques sample fish on an electrofishing boat. Photo by Todd Paris, UAF Marketing and Publications.
- At the 2007 American Fisheries Society meeting in San Francisco, Trent Sutton, SFOS undergraduate fisheries coordinator, received an award recognizing his personal contributions to the AFS Education Section.
- Katrin Iken and Rolf Gradinger have taken over the Graduate Program in Marine Science and Limnology. Iken, Gradinger and Matthew Wooller were also awarded promotion and tenure this year.
- Stephen Jewett, research professor of marine science, published a paper called “Mercury in fishes of Alaska, with emphasis on subsistence species” in Science of the Total Environment. The paper summarizes the large amount of data generated on mercury in Alaska fish, particularly on those fish consumed by Alaskans. The paper also includes information on the benefits of eating fish, human health concerns relating to mercury toxicity and emphasizes methylmercury, the most toxic form of mercury for humans.
- Katie Murra, recruitment & retention coordinator, and Carin Bailey, public information officer, staffed a booth display at the 2007 American Fisheries Society meeting in San Francisco. Murra and Bailey recruited fisheries students at the conference and announced faculty employment opportunities at the AFS Career Fair.
- Brenda Konar is currently teaching a marine biology seminar called “Controversies in Science”. The course is being videoconferenced to San Diego State University to get other perspectives on controversial topics. Konar also wrote or co-wrote six publications this year so far.
- Anthony Gharrett, professor of fisheries, hosted Senator Kim Elton and members of the media at the Lena Point fisheries facility construction site in June. The building is progressing on schedule and is expected to be completed in September 2008.
- Terry Quinn, professor of fisheries, traveled with Sherry Tamone, assistant professor of fisheries at the University of Alaska Southeast, to Prince Edward Island to present at an international workshop about bitter crab disease, an infection in crabs caused by parasitic dinoflagellates. Quinn also presented a talk at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia called “What is a realistic fisheries model?”.
- Terry Johnson, marine advisory program agent in Homer, received an $83,000 grant from the Alaska Department of Fish & Game to develop a program for teaching harbor facility operators how to control rats and prevent their spread to visiting vessels.
- Phyllis Shoemaker, laboratory manager at the Seward Marine Center, is leading the planning and preparation efforts for the national finals of the 2008 National Ocean Sciences Bowl, to be hosted in April in Seward, Alaska.
- Matthew Wooller, associate professor of chemical oceanography and director of the Alaska Stable Isotope Facility, was awarded a Department of Defense grant to study the isotope composition of marijuana and domestic water in the state of Alaska.
- John Haverlack became the new SFOS information technology manager in August. He has a B.S. in physics from Virginia Tech and has taught high school physics, math, earth science and computer science. He has been doing systems administration for about 15 years. He previously worked for the Geophysical Institute’s Alaska Satellite Facility.
- Geoff Wheat, research professor of oceanography in Moss Landing, California, and Brenda Konar organized and ran a day-long symposium at the American Fisheries Society called “The use of tagging technology for ecosystem studies”. The symposium addressed advances in tagging techniques and applications in scientific research.
- Rolf Gradinger and Hajo Eicken (IARC) will teach an interdisciplinary sea ice course in May-June 2008 in Barrow, Alaska. The class, MSL 693: Field techniques in interdisciplinary sea-ice research, will provide graduate students with hands-on experience in sea ice physics, chemistry and biology.
- Amanda Rosenberger, assistant professor of fisheries, took students in her Fisheries Techniques course to Ballaine Lake, the Chatanika River and Piledriver Slough to learn basic aquatic habitat and fisheries sampling techniques. The course is team-taught with Trent Sutton.
- This spring, Kate Wynne, marine advisory program agent in Kodiak, gave a presentation on marine mammals at Whalefest Kodiak. FITC research technician Bree Witteveen presented on humpback whale foraging ecology and FITC post-doc Jane McKenzie discussed blue whales off of Australia’s coast.
- Torie Baker, marine advisory program agent in Cordova, presented a poster on bottom-up activism in Alaska’s fisheries at the American Fisheries Society meeting. Baker also helped coordinate a high school career fair in Cordova on September 24. About 40 students participated and chose career sessions they wanted to attend. The commercial fishing session was by far the most popular with 34 attendees. Torie gave a half hour talk on entering fisheries as a young person, business planning and the importance of acquiring safety and seamanship skills.
- Back to Fall 2007 Newsletter