I am an undergraduate at Michigan State University and will be finishing my bachelor’s degree in Fisheries and Wildlife this upcoming December. This is round 2 for me at Cascadia- I interned in the Hawaii office last summer and am back this summer to work on various data analyses/research projects. Over the past year or so, I’ve gained both experience and interest in applying advanced quantitative methods to help inform management of wildlife and cetacean populations. Some of the work I’ve been helping with at Cascadia includes assessing variation in persistent organic pollutant concentrations among demographics of Hawaiian false killer whales, examining the influence of various environmental factors (e.g., lunar light levels, oceanographic season), on the space use of Hawaiian pantropical spotted dolphins, and using open mark-recapture models to estimate abundance of Hawaiian pygmy killer whales. I’m also helping with the Section 6 grant analyses concerning the endangered false killer whale population, including geospatial and quantitative work to examine the influence of environmental and social factors on the spatial and temporal distribution of this population, and how these may cause overlap with state fisheries effort. Aside from my research, I enjoy just about anything outdoors or on the water, such as hiking, fishing, birding, rock picking, etc. I’m very excited to be back at Cascadia this summer, and the opportunities that I’ve been provided have been greatly beneficial to my career and personal growth (and continue to!).
Summer 2018, Summer 2019