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    September 2019

    Feature Story

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    Sep 16, 2019
    • Ocean Acidification
    • Resource Management
    • Students
    • College of the Environment

    Catching up with Katie Keil, 2019 Marine and Environmental Affairs graduate

    As the academic year is about to get underway, we sat down with recent School of Marine and Environmental Affairs graduate Katie Keil to see what advice she might have for incoming University of Washington graduate students.

    Katie Keil near one of her study sites in the Hood Canal.

    What advice would you have for incoming UW graduate students?

    First and foremost, my advice would be to say “yes” to new experiences because here at UW, there are so many interesting, life-changing opportunities that are available to you. I’ve found that opportunities outside of your comfort zone provide the most growth and are the most rewarding. Working outside of your discipline will expand your horizons and provide a chance to collaborate with people outside of your program.

    Sign up for that science communication workshop even if you’re introverted, present your research at that conference even if you only have preliminary findings, and apply for that research expedition even if you’re a dance major. There is so much to learn and you only have a few years.

    What was one of your coolest experiences in graduate school?

    One of my favorite experiences has been teaching ENVIR495C, a 9-day undergraduate backpacking course in Olympic National Park. Through this course, I help teach ice-axe training on the slopes of an unnamed mountain pass, traverse glaciers at midnight in search of ice worms, and explore challenging topics with students while hiking through old growth forests. It’s an incredibly rewarding experience, and I leave the park each summer with a year’s worth of stories.

    I have also had the opportunity to go on four research cruises. One was on a VISIONS cruise off Oregon coast, where I caught glimpses of marine life thriving at depths of 2900 meters. The other three were in the Salish Sea, where I learned the art of cleaning a plankton net, cruised alongside dolphins, and sorted krill by moonlight.

    What surprised you about graduate school?

    I knew graduate school would challenge me in ways I couldn’t anticipate, but I’ve grown so much more academically, professionally, and personally than I could have ever hoped. All the people I’ve worked with – teachers, peers, and my students – have expanded my perspective, my interdisciplinary research taught me to think across boundaries, and the challenges of my fast-paced curriculum taught me how to set priorities and think critically. Graduate school has been really difficult, but it has been the best learning experience of my life.

    Tell me a bit about your research and why it matters?

    I study the impacts of ocean acidification on zooplankton here in the Pacific Northwest.

    Katie looks at zooplankton through the microscope for her research.

    To do this, I compiled all the relevant literature examining how zooplankton respond to conditions associated with ocean acidification, such as low pH. I then combined all of the data from these papers in a statistical procedure called a meta-analysis and ranked each zooplankton from most sensitive to least sensitive.

    To test the rankings I created, I went on two research cruises in Puget Sound to collect environmental and zooplankton data to determine how zooplankton were responding to ocean acidification in the field. The goal was to determine if low pH was influencing where and how many zooplankton were found at my research stations in the Sound.

    This research is important because plankton are at the base of the food web, so impacts to them will reverberate throughout our entire ecosystem – ultimately impacting humans, too. My research helps determine which zooplankton species are the most sensitive to these changes and in what way(s) they’re sensitive, so scientists and managers can better understand and anticipate the types of impacts ocean acidification will have in the future.

    You also were able to teach while here at UW. How would you describe that experience versus research, as they require different skill sets?

    My experiences teaching compared to conducting research are actually really similar and require a lot of the same skills, such as patience, creativity, preparation and critical thinking to be most effective, and both come with steep learning curves and an abundance of unpredictable variables.

    While teaching, my purpose is to present challenges to students and guide them so that they better understand key concepts, explore the nuances of issues, and find a passion for the communities and environments they work within. While researching, my purpose is different – I am finding my own way through challenges and seeking out others who may or may not to be able to help me answer these questions.

    What is something you wish you would have taken advantage of while here at UW, but just couldn’t do it?

    There is a lot of travel funding that’s available for conferences, and I would have loved to have been able to travel to share my results abroad, collaborate internationally, and experience a new country.

    I would have also loved to take advantage of more of the experiential learning opportunities at Friday Harbor Labs. During my first graduate school summer, I enrolled in the Marine Mammals and Birds course at the labs and fell in love with the scientists, facilities, local marine life, and island character. I also got my boating license while there and would drive my research team to an island to study seal behavior each week – having another summer to conduct boat-based research would have been really great.

    What’s next for you now as you leave UW?

    Great question! I’m still working that out.

    I’m really excited by the idea of working at the intersection of science, policy and management. I would love the opportunity to continue working in ocean acidification because it’s such a complex issue that requires thinking across disciplines and collaboration from everyone – agencies, industry, and researchers – to be able to move forward on solutions. It’s also a really pressing issue because we’re already seeing the impacts of it, and there’s a lot of ground to cover to adapt to and mitigate these impacts – and I love a good challenge.

    I’m just very grateful to have pursued my degree at UW and couldn’t imagine a more fulfilling graduate career.

     

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    Sep 25, 2019
    • Conservation

    Join us for the 2019 Doug Walker Lecture with J. Drew Lanham, PhD

    J. Drew Lanham, PhD

    Inviting diversity and race to play an active role in conservation: 2019 Doug Walker Lecture

    As an African American raised in the south who had a love affair with nature, Dr. J. Drew Lanham grew up feeling like a “rare bird”. Join us for the 2019 Doug Walker Lecture where Dr. Lanham, will discuss what it means to embrace both his history and relationship to nature, and how these two intertwine as an ornithologist, wildlife ecologist and college professor. Considered a superhero of advocacy for the natural world, Dr. Lanham will examine how conservation must be a rigorous science and evocative art – and that love of nature is not restricted by race and should play an active roles in celebrating our natural world.

    Details

    When: Wednesday, October 30, 2019 | 6:30 p.m.
    Where: Benaroya Hall | Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall | 200 University St., Seattle, 98101
    Cost: $8

    About J. Drew Lanham, PhD

    J. Drew Lanham is a distinguished alumni professor, provost’s professor, and alumni master teacher at Clemson University in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Conservation. In his teaching, research, and outreach roles, Lanham seeks to translate conservation science, making it relevant in ways that are evocative and understandable. As a Black American, he’s intrigued with how culture and ethnic prisms can bend perceptions of nature and its care. His “connecting the conservation dots” and “coloring the conservation conversation” messages have been delivered internationally.

    Lanham is a widely published author and award-nominated poet, writing about his experiences as a birder, hunter and wild, wandering soul. His first solo work, The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature (Milkweed 2016; Tantor Audio 2019), was awarded the Phillip Reed Memorial Award for Outstanding Writing on the Southern Environment in 2018. Lanham is poet laureate of his home place county of Edgefield, SC, and the author of Sparrow Envy – Poems. His essay “Forever Gone” (Orion Magazine 2018), which laments the passage of the Carolina Parakeet and the roles culture may have played in that demise. It was selected as an American Best Essay (by Rebecca Solnit) in 2019.

    Get tickets »

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    Sep 23, 2019
    • Climate

    Becky Alexander named director of UW Program on Climate Change

    Becky Alexander
    Becky Alexander, incoming director of the UW Program on Climate Change.

    The UW College of the Environment is pleased to announce that Becky Alexander has been named the director of the UW Program on Climate Change (PCC).

    Becky is an atmospheric chemist in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences who studies the feedbacks that arise between climate change and the chemical composition of the atmosphere. She also has a long-standing relationship with the program, as she was initially hired as new faculty spearheaded by the Program on Climate Change to promote interdisciplinary climate research and teaching.

    “The Search Committee noted that there is widespread agreement throughout the PCC community that the interdisciplinary teaching and education focused on climate change that has been fostered by the PCC has created strong connections across the core units and has fostered important linkages with other units across the university. They also highlighted that PCC activities have led to tremendous results in creating and sustaining a strong community of graduate students. I am excited to have the opportunity to work closely with Becky to continue PCC’s momentum and build on its collaborative foundations so that the program continues to thrive.” said Lisa Graumlich, dean and Mary Laird Wood Professor at the College of the Environment.

    The College would also like to thanks Cecilia Bitz for her service as the outgoing director.

    “Cecilia’s collaborative approach and interest in a thriving climate community among faculty and students at the UW ensured that the PCC continues to be relevant after almost 20 years since its founding,” Graumlich said.

    Thanks are also due to the advisory search committee for their outreach to the PCC community, energy and thoughtfulness, including Miriam Bertram (Assistant Director, Program on Climate Change), Dargan Frierson (Associate Professor, Atmospheric Sciences), Sarah Ragen (Graduate Student, Oceanography), Gerard Roe (Committee Chair; Professor, Earth and Space Sciences), and Rebecca Woodgate (Senior Principal Oceanographer, Applied Physics Lab; APL Professor WOT, Oceanography).

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    Sep 23, 2019
    • Climate
    • Marine Science

    Two UW ice researchers to participate in year-long drift across Arctic Ocean

    The Polarstern in Antarctica in 2013, on a previous expedition.
    Alfred-Wegener-Institut/Stefan Hendricks
    The Polarstern in Antarctica in 2013, on a previous expedition. The ship becomes frozen in sea ice, allowing an interdisciplinary research program on atmosphere, sea ice, ocean, and ecosystem as the sea ice grows and then melts.

    When the German icebreaker Polarstern leaves Norway’s coast on Sept. 20, it will embark on a year-long drift across the Arctic Ocean. Two University of Washington researchers are among scientists from 17 nations who will study climate change from a unique floating research platform.

    The Arctic has warmed dramatically over recent decades, but observations are scarce during the ice-covered winter. The MOSAiC expedition, or Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate, will enclose the research icebreaker Polarstern in sea ice for a year, creating a drifting research platform that will pass near the North Pole.

    Two UW researchers — Bonnie Light, a principal physicist at the UW’s Applied Physics Laboratory and an affiliate associate professor of atmospheric sciences, and Madison Smith, a recent UW graduate who is now doing her postdoctoral research at the UW — will join for the fifth of the six two-month legs, in summer 2020.

    “This project is a once-in-a-generation endeavor,” said Light, a member of the UW Polar Science Center. “It takes a tremendous amount of commitment, resources and planning to pull off a campaign of this scope.”

    The UW scientists will leave from Norway in June aboard the Swedish icebreaker Oden, then travel for about two weeks to the research base, which at that point is projected to be between 85 degrees and 90 degrees north latitude, to the north or northeast of Greenland. They will then make a final leg to reach the ship.

    Following the sea ice for a full year offers unique opportunities, said Light, who studies “rotting” or melting ice. She and Smith will be part of the sea ice team and will focus on how sunlight is reflected, transmitted and absorbed by the ice cover as it melts.

    Read more at UW News »

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    Sep 18, 2019
    • Geophysical Sciences
    • Students

    Seagrass in Australia help students prepare for the real world

    Lucy Trippett
    Students carrying the Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV) in Moreton Bay Research Station.

    In the real world, engineers and scientists work together to conduct research and solve problems, but that is typically not the case in classrooms. But a month-long study abroad program provided an opportunity for student scientists and engineers to collaborate. University of Washington students traveled to the Queensland University of Technology in Australia, where they studied why seagrass and coral reef ecosystems are important, how to measure changes within these ecosystems and how to use robots to collect data.

    Thirteen students were selected to participate in the program after an interview process that was carefully designed to create a diverse cohort. The class was co-taught by School of Oceanography research engineer Rick Rupan and graduate student Isaiah Bolden, who formed an engineer/scientist team to expose students to real-world problem-solving and promote diversity of thought. The two led by example, showing students how engineering and science can work together to solve problems.

    “We wanted to push for a place-based learning experience, where students would have opportunities to interact with cutting edge instrumentation and technology to research ecological changes as they relate to local historical and cultural factors,” said Bolden.

    Students with a CTD
    Isaiah Bolden
    Students learning how to use the CTD aboard the R/V Centennial in Friday Harbor Labs.

    Before the students even set foot on the plane, they spent a rigorous 24 hours conducting field research at Friday Harbor Laboratories where they quite literally got their feet wet. The students—many of whom have never been on a boat prior to boarding Friday Harbor Labs’ R/V Centennial—learned how to operate and collect data from an instrument known as a CTD, which measures the conductivity, temperature and depth of seawater. Students also learned about processes governing the cycling of key seawater components, like carbon, oxygen, salinity and acidity within coastal wetland ecosystems.

    Armed with this baseline knowledge, the students began the actual study abroad program in Australia on June 24, 2019. June Hairston from UW Louis Stokes STEM Pathways and Research Alliance: Pacific Northwest (LSAMP) gave lectures on diversity and cultural representatives from the local aboriginal communities provided students with context of the history and customs of the land they were visiting. After a week of biogeochemical classes focused on coastal seagrass and coral reef ecosystems, students formed groups and created scientific hypotheses to test in the field. The students traveled east to the Moreton Bay Research Station on Stradbroke Island and used new field sampling techniques along with Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV) to collect scientific and engineering data.

    Based on research interest, four teams were formed. Using manually-controlled devices and satellite imagery, the first group looked at seagrass density as a measure for the health of certain patches of seagrass. Seagrass can sequester carbon to offset ocean acidification, but many seagrasses are dying off. Results showed that autonomous monitoring of seagrass borders at shallow depths is possible, and the group is now working on a proposal to obtain a more autonomous kind of AUV to monitor and map seagrass beds, coral reefs and other underwater ecosystems. This would effectively eliminate the need for manual ways of collecting data, like manually-maneuvered devices.

    The second group studied how well seagrass sequesters carbon dioxide by looking at water and oxygen levels. Samples measuring Oxidation-Reduction Potential (ORP), nitrates and dissolved inorganic carbon were collected from three different sites with varied seagrass coverage. The group found that in terms of carbon sequestration, low ORP creates a better environment for carbon storage, resulting in healthy, high-density seagrass.

    Continuing with the seagrass studies, the third group looked at the relationship between different seagrass densities and the effects turbidity has on seagrass productivity. Turbidity is the murkiness of water due to suspended particles, which impacts seagrass productivity. This team collected data at three sites and compared that with historical data from three sites in the same region from 2005 to 2014.

    The fourth group looked at the parameters that influence coral health at Moreton Bay versus neighboring Lady Elliot Island in the Great Barrier Reef. Using four collection methods, the students collected seawater acidity, temperature and salinity, and coral diversity and coverage. Results show that Lady Elliot corals are healthier and more diverse than those at Moreton Bay. The group concluded that understanding the correlation between carbonate saturation state and coral health could help preserve coral ecosystems.

    Together, Rupan and Bolden modeled how science and engineering can work together. “The goal was to do things we never even thought to do before,” said Rupan. “That type of diversity is something we don’t get in our classrooms, but is necessary today more than ever.”

    The class, titled Discrete, Autonomous, and Robotic Observations of Marine Ecosystems in Australia was funded jointly from the College of the Environment’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion team, UW’s LSAMP program, and the College of Engineering. Final group presentations are scheduled for Tues., Nov. 5 at 3 p.m. in room 425 of the Ocean Sciences Building.

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    Sep 13, 2019
    • College of the Environment
    • Awards and Honors

    Sarah Converse awarded Department of Interior’s highest honor

    Please join us in congratulating Dr. Sarah Converse who received the Department of the Interior’s Distinguished Service Award in Washington D.C. on September 12th. The award is the highest honorary recognition an employee can receive within the Department of the Interior and is granted for “outstanding contribution to science, outstanding skill or ability in the performance of duty, outstanding contribution made during an eminent career in the Department, or any other exceptional contribution to the public service.”

    Converse is honored for her work in whooping crane recovery and research, and the application of decision science as a management tool in support of federal trust agencies.

    You can watch the live webcast of the awards ceremony on the Department of the Interior website.

    Congratulations Sarah!

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    Sep 9, 2019
    • Environmental Chemistry

    New study tracks sulfur-based metabolism in the open ocean

    Students with an oceanography instrument
    Dror Shitrit/Simons Collaboration on Ocean Processes and Ecology
    Field samples were collected during a 2015 cruise in the North Pacific. Co-authors Bryndan Durham (center) and Laura Carlson (right) recover the sampling instrument. The gray bottles open and close at specific depths to collect seawater samples.

    One of the planet’s most active ecosystems is one most people rarely encounter and scientists are only starting to explore. The open ocean contains tiny organisms — phytoplankton — that perform half the photosynthesis on Earth, helping generate oxygen for animals on land.

    A study by University of Washington oceanographers, published this summer in Nature Microbiology, looks at how photosynthetic microbes and ocean bacteria use sulfur, a plentiful marine nutrient.

    Sulfur is the odorous element that gives beaches their distinctive smell. The new study focused on sulfonates, in which a sulfur atom is connected to three oxygen atoms and a carbon-based molecule. In the ocean, phytoplankton use energy from the sun to create sulfonate molecules. Bacteria then consume the sulfonates to gain nutrients and energy.

    Bryndan Durham, then a postdoctoral researcher in oceanography at the UW and now an assistant professor at the University of Florida, drew on the recent genetic studies of soils to learn which microbial pathways are used to process sulfonates in the ocean. The study first focused on 36 marine microbes that the team cultured in the lab, using a UW-developed method to test which organisms produce sulfonates on their own in a lab environment.

    The study discovered “some striking similarities between sulfonate pathways in terrestrial and ocean systems,” Durham wrote in a “Behind the Paper” post in Nature Microbiology that discusses the project. In soils, plants typically produce sulfonates. In the oceans most sulfonates are also produced by photosynthetic organisms, in this case by unicellular phytoplankton.

    Read more at UW News »

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    Events

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    October 3, 2019

    Fall Seminar Series: Daniel Schindler and Brad Hanson

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    October 30, 2019

    Doug Walker Lecture with J. Drew Lanham

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    News From Around the College

    • UW expert calls attention to deforestation in the Amazon amid record fires, King5/Environmental and Forest Sciences
    • The Amazon rainforest is on fire. Climate scientists fear a tipping point is near, Los Angeles Times/Atmospheric Sciences
    • How can I teach my students about climate change?, Grist/Climate Impacts Group
    • Another ‘Warm Blob’ Is Forming In The Pacific Ocean, Forbes/Oceanography
    • The UW’s Hyde Herbarium collects dead plants — and living history, The Seattle Times/UW Botanic Gardens

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