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InsideOur NameChanges

SAFSCurriculum

Kenneth K.Chew

SalmonRelease Day

New Faculty

Gifts

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&AQUATIC FISHERYS C I E N C E SS C I E N C E SS C I E N C E SS C I E N C E SS C I E N C E S

N E W S L E T T E R O F T H E S C H O O L O F A Q U A T I C & F I S H E R Y S C I E N C E S U N I V E R S I T Y O F W A S H I N G T O N S P R I N G 2 0 0 1

From the Director

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FRIENDS, COLLEAGUES, AND ALUMNI—When we last said hello to you the School wason the verge of many changes: a new building,new faculty, new student programs. As you willread throughout this newsletter, those changeshave occurred or are in progress—all we believeto the betterment of our School and its missionof teaching and research in Aquatic & FisherySciences.

That phrase itself is our new departmentalname, which more accurately represents the spec-trum of faculty roles and student interest notonly in traditional arenas of fishery sciences andmanagement but increasingly across a wide arrayof conservation issues. After so much change,renovation, and reorganization, you mightexpect a period of stasis, a time to savor a newstatus quo. But that is not the nature of anacademic department. Like the processes andanimals we study—tides, currents, migrations,adaptations, rise and fall of stocks—our depart-ment is dynamic, its people and programs,visions and priorities moving down differentpaths in response to creative inclination andexternal realities and opportunities.

One of the pioneers of invertebrate aqua-culture, Dr. Ken Chew, has retired, promptingfaculty to consider the future of our aquacultureprogram. Presently, we are interviewing candi-dates for two tenure-track positions that relateexplicitly to aquaculture sciences. We haveembarked on a campaign to seek contributionsfor an endowed professorship in Ken’s honoras a long-term resource for aquaculture research.His legacy will be remembered as the incominggeneration of faculty tackle new challenges andmake new discoveries within this discipline.

http://www.fish.was

The new faculty highlighted in this newsletterhave joined strategic planning committees to addtheir vision for changes to our curriculum—changes that will enhance students’ skills incritical thinking, experiential learning, analyzingand interpreting information, understanding ofintegrated physical and biological systems, andappreciation of societal realities that will berequired in their careers.

Some of these new faculty represent bridgesbetween federal resource agencies and our Schoolthat will expand research and teaching in criticalareas such as endangered species conservation,marine protected areas, and fisheries assessmentand management. One holds a joint appointmentbetween our School and Zoology to deepen thecontext of teaching and promote research syner-gies across scientific disciplines on campus.

Some of our faculty will routinely teach generalcourses that serve a large undergraduate interestin biology, and they are joining a new integratedMarine Biology sequence that also involves facultyof Oceanography and Marine Affairs within the

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G. Jensen

Undergraduate and graduate students from across campus conduct individual research

projects at the School’s Marine Molecular Biotechnology Lab.

College of Ocean and Fishery Sciences.A profound aspect of our department’s

dynamic character and programmaticcreativity is the incredible underpinningof support provided by you, our alumniand friends. Despite current uncertaintiesin State and University funding of aca-demic programs, Aquatic & Fishery Sci-ences has the tremendous good fortune ofstill being able to support those inspiredfaculty and students who envision newresearch, or seek to enhance teaching thatwould otherwise be beyond our financialmeans. I can not state too strongly that,through a host of endowments, you havegiven us the gift of programmatic flexibil-ity and opportunity in ways I couldn’timagine before becoming Director.

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We can attract the best of graduateapplicants through endowed recruitmentfellowships. We can strengthen successfulfaculty programs through the Keeler andWorthington Endowed Professorships. Wecan strategically and incrementally upgradeequipment and facilities for key researchand teaching installations like Big BeefCreek, the Alaska field camps, the MarineMolecular Biotechnology Lab, and thecampus hatchery and freshwater researchfacility that benefit faculty and students.We can provide many more undergradu-ate scholarships and research subsidiesnow than ever before.

We can use our combined endowedsupport to leverage other University andexternal grant and contract pools by pro-

viding meaningful matching funds whenour faculty submit proposals. We can say“yes” to good ideas and initiatives, and wecan take some risks that culminate in largerewards to students. Your contributionsare all important to the ongoing vitality ofthe School. Thank you so much for yourinterest in and generosity to our School!

We are engaged more than ever beforein a holistic perspective of aquatic systems:the profoundly intricate matrices of phys-ics, chemistry, and biology that interact tomake a stream, a lake, an estuary allhealthy and productive but which aresometimes perturbed by human activities.As a result, we have become far more so-phisticated in our appreciation that harvestis only one aspect of fisheries ecology. ■

&Our name acronym changeS A F SS A F SS A F SS A F SS A F S

S C H O O L O F A Q U A T I C & F I S H E R Y S C I E N C E S

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What’s in a name?The short answer is, “Much more than isimmediately apparent.” Indeed, in therecent past, our faculty, staff, and studentscame to see that the longstanding name ofour school—“Fisheries,” with its rich legacyspanning over 80 years—no longer reflectedthe breadth and scope of our teaching,research, and outreach programs.

In the long view, institutions typicallyevolve continuously. This does not neces-sarily justify a name change, else we mightbe altering our moniker every few years.But here at our school, things were hap-pening that demanded a good, hard lookat our name in the light of perception andreality.

What’s changed?Most visible, especially to the casualobserver, is the new building we occupiedin summer 1999, with its state-of-the-artteaching and research facilities. Less vis-ible, but perhaps more significant, weresubstantive changes in our faculty, coreprogram areas, curriculum, and outreach.

In the last few years, there have beenmany faculty retirements. These retire-ments presented the opportunity to bringin people with new ideas and directions.Since the end of 1998, we have hired fivefaculty, and hope to soon hire three more.This large influx of talent has alreadystarted to alter and expand the nature ofour programs, and gives us further strate-gic leverage to face the challenges of thenew century.

Core program areas have undergonechanges by our faculty to reflect the evolu-tion of aquatic and fishery sciences as awhole. Along with our historical focus onharvest-based management of exploited

stocks and fish propagation for aquacul-ture and mitigation, we have broadenedour scope to include conservation, habitatprotection and restoration, biodiversity,user conflicts, and restoration.

Our many foci have been consolidatedunder three critical program areas: AquaticBiodiversity; Aquatic Organismal Biology;and Aquatic Conservation Biology, Aqua-culture, and Management. (A list of fociand associated faculty is available atwww.fish.washington.edu/profile/facprofiletoc.html#keyword). Commensurate with ourexpanding scope is our increasing inter-disciplinary collaborations with otherUW departments such as Forest Resources,Marine Affairs, Oceanography, andZoology.

A highlight of our changing curriculumis the renewed emphasis on undergraduateeducation (see page 4). As our enrollmentnumbers suggest, we are meeting the man-date of increasing undergraduate enroll-ment while maintaining our instructionalquality and highly personalized atmosphere.

Through our outreach programs such asSalmon in the Classroom and the Nature-Mapping Program, school children con-tinue to learn about salmon and otherPacific Northwest fauna, but with moreemphasis on their context within waterquality and conservation issues relatingto our changing environment (see http://www.fish. washington.edu/outreach.html).

Reality & perceptionThe reality of our changing programs justi-fied a name change, but equally importantwas the perception of our school—forexample, how potential undergraduaterecruits perceived us based on our name.When we asked students, staff, and faculty

in SAFS and other campus departments,all felt that “fisheries” implied a focus onharvest and management at the expense ofthe broader aquatic sciences we pursue.

Students also suggested a name thatbetter represents our academic diversitywould attract students who otherwisemight declare as Biology or Zoologymajors despite their interest in aquatic sci-ences. Perception also matters to the manyconstituents we serve, from the fishery-based industries to government and privatesector agencies and groups who look to usfor help through conservation and restora-tion and ecosystem-wide approaches thataddress natural and human influences.

What is in a name, then? For us, thelong answer is “The ability to realisticallyand perceptually convey the sum and sub-stance of our programs to our constitu-ents.” We believe the “School of Aquatic& Fishery Sciences” is that answer. ■

These retirements presented the

opportunity to bring in people

with new ideas and directions

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U N D E R G R A D U A T EU N D E R G R A D U A T EU N D E R G R A D U A T EU N D E R G R A D U A T EU N D E R G R A D U A T E

SAFS curriculumC H A N G E SC H A N G E SC H A N G E SC H A N G E SC H A N G E S

Reminiscent of the movie “Groundhog Day,” the School’sundergraduate curriculum has been under renovation again. Canwe design a curriculum that attracts the best undergraduates,represents the amazing diversity of disciplines we offer, and doesnot require us to throw out the baby with the bath water?

This time, we have two powerful motivating factors:■ A goal in our Strategic Plan of 85 to 100 majors by the end of

the coming academic year (2001–2002)—together with the“new math” of student credit hours we’ve been hearing about,this means we must increase our visibility.

■ A rapid influx of junior faculty (five in less than two years),bringing renewed enthusiasm for undergraduate teaching andnew fields of expertise.

This stick-and-carrot duo is added to the many excellent teach-ers we already possess—the SAFS faculty boasts three recipients ofthe University of Washington Distinguished Teaching Award,who are constantly innovating their own courses and creating newones. Here’s a sampling of where we’re going and what the under-graduate response is.

This year, we approved the creation of “Focus Areas” that dividethe existing curriculum into three overlapping sets: AquaticEcology, Conservation and Management, and Aquaculture. Eacharea is headed by a required “Flagship” course, formerly in thecore. Our 400-level courses are apportioned across the focus areas,with some courses offered in two, or even all three areas. We alsoapproved a two-quarter, six-credit minimum senior thesis for allSAFS majors.

Thanks to our generous donors, many students will be eligiblefor independent research funding through our competitivelyawarded Aquatic & Fishery Research Opportunities for Under-graduates.

Our new faculty members have added both twists to existingcourses and new courses. Students can now study Conserva-tion Genetics (Kerry Naish), Bioenergetic Modeling (DavidBeauchamp), Hydroacoustics (John Horne), and Marine Conser-vation and Sustainable Fisheries (Julia Parrish). Miles Logsdon(joint SAFS/Oceanography faculty) is also offering a range ofGIS/spatial analysis courses. Which is not to say our existing fac-ulty members have been slouches: several new approaches toteaching have emerged from senior faculty members—includingemersion science/experiential learning, cross-disciplinary initia-tives, and case study learning.

With help from the UW Tools for Transformation program,Tom Quinn and Ray Hilborn as well as Dan Schindler (UW

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Zoology) put together the popular “Aquatic EcologicalResearch in Alaska” summer field course in which students diveinto all aspects of salmon aquatic field science. Bob Naiman,Tom Quinn, and Frieda Taub, as well as Dan Schindler andMichael Brett (UW Civil Engineering) formed the FreshwaterInitiative, which offers students linked courses, across threeColleges, that explore freshwater ecosystems. Bob Francisenthusiastically volunteered to teach FISH 101, revamping thecourse using case studies on Atlantic bluefin tuna, Pacific North-west salmon, and reef fish in Indonesia and the Philippines.

Are these changes making a difference? As of Winter Quarter2000, SAFS had 53 majors, an improvement from the recent pastbut a far cry from our goal. This spring the number of majors in-creased to 76. Lin Murdock, our Student Services Coordinator,credits many of our recent innovations as a large part of this in-crease, and we credit Lin for her hard work and dedication to re-cruitment and student services.

The curriculum continues to evolve. In Autumn Quarter 2001,the new course, “Marine Biology,” FISH/OCEAN 250 will beoffered. This course is part of a new Honors Program three-coursesequence in marine biology, with which we plan to recruit the topundergraduate students at the UW to major in SAFS or Oceanog-raphy. Stay tuned!

—Ted PietschAssociate Director

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Our students learn field research theory and techniques through

sampling, collecting, and interpreting data in local waters.

Kenneth K. ChewC

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C A R E E RC A R E E RC A R E E RC A R E E RC A R E E R A P P R E C I A T I O NA P P R E C I A T I O NA P P R E C I A T I O NA P P R E C I A T I O NA P P R E C I A T I O N

In essence, Ken is a lifetime member of the school, as the following account demonstrates.Ken was born in Red Bluff, California in 1933. After earning his BA from Chico State

College (1955), he attended the UW School of Fisheries, initially studying trout andsalmon. But after spending a summer at the state Department of Fisheries shellfish lab inBrinnon, he was hooked on molluscs. He then went on to earn his graduate degrees inthis area—a Master’s on the food preference of the Japanese oyster drill (1958) and a PhDon Pacific oysters transplanted to Washington State (1962).

On completing his graduate studies, Ken took a job with the school and has been hereever since. He has held various positions, including Interim Director (1996–98), and con-tinues to serve as Director for the Western Regional Aquaculture Center, a nationwideUSDA-funded program that provides research opportunities for many of our students.

During his tenure here, Ken has become a well-known authority on molluscan biology,contributing extensively to invertebrate research and helping develop the shellfish indus-try in the Pacific Northwest. He and many of his students sought to solve problems insupport of that industry, and many of its members credit Ken’s programs in large measurefor shellfisheries’ current state of well being. Ken’s influence extends well beyond theNorthwest, including Australia, Canada, China, Chile, Japan, Thailand, Taiwan, and thePhilippines.

His broad research interests include shellfish biology and aquaculture, paralytic shell-fish poisoning, and ecological studies of benthic intertidal and subtidal invertebrate com-munities. He has published over 90 papers in scientific journals, reports, proceedings,book chapters, and trade publications. His academic career has seen the graduation ofabout 100 students he supervised.

In 1993, he received the Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award from theCollege of Ocean & Fisheries Sciences. He also has been awarded and recognized byorganizations including the National Shellfisheries Association—the first David H.Wallace Award in 1982—and the World Aquaculture Society, which made him anHonorary Life Member in 1995.

It is no surprise to those of us who know him personally that, while now retired,Ken continues to remain active within the school, pursuing collaborations with theaquaculture industry and local, state, and national government agencies.

Then there’s Ken Chew, the “everyman,” husband and father of four, master chef,sportsman, wicked handball player (the cause of more than one delayed meeting!),and true friend to the people of SAFS. Ken has always made time to hear us out andsupport us through good and bad times, and always has tried to take a positive approachto help us with the issues at hand.

Thank you, Ken! We wish you well in your future endeavors within the school andelsewhere.

—(Partially derived from N. Bourne. 2000. J. Shellfish Research 19:13-14.)

ProfessorDirector, Western Regional Aquaculture CenterAssociate Director, College of Ocean & Fishery Sciences

New endowmentWe are pleased to

announce the

establishment of the

Ken Chew Endowed

Professorship in

Aquaculture, which

honors Ken’s legacy and

will enable us to continue

attracting and retaining

outstanding faculty.

For further information,

please contact Linda Maxson,

lmaxson@u.washington.edu,

206-221-6808

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Salmon release day

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ach spring since 1991, the UW School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences (SAFS) and SeattlePublic Utilities have cosponsored the K–12 education fair, Salmon Release Day—the cul-mination of the Salmon in the Classroom program. On this day, school children releasesalmon fry they have been rearing since the preceding fall.

This year’s event was bigger than ever—620 children attended. Besides releasing theirfry, students participated in numerous activities (see Highlights). Salmon Release Daywould not have been possible without the contributions of numerous volunteers: 14 fromSAFS, including students, staff, and faculty, and several from UW Oceanography. Ofcourse, there was considerable help and funding provided by Seattle Public Utilities; andin attendance, once again, was Seattle Mayor Paul Schell.

Salmon Release Day is a terrific event where students learn about salmon life history,challenges salmon encounter in their migrations, and how we can have a positive impacton the environment.

S A L M O NS A L M O NS A L M O NS A L M O NS A L M O N I NI NI NI NI N T H ET H ET H ET H ET H E C L A S S R O O MC L A S S R O O MC L A S S R O O MC L A S S R O O MC L A S S R O O M

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HighlightsUW Fish CollectionUndergraduate Margarita Reimer and graduate student Katie Dodd introducedstudents, through a hands-on demonstration of Collection samples, to inter-esting and unusual fishes in our area and around the world.

Water Cycle, Watershed, & Fish HabitatUW Forest Resources contributed a model to teach about the water cyclefrom evaporation through precipitation. Seattle Public Utilities demonstratedthe impacts of human activities such as washing cars on watersheds.

RecyclingPatterned after “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” a multiple-choice gameabout what should and shouldn’t be recycled.

AnatomySAFS graduate student Ken Liu used a dissected salmon to teach studentsabout fish anatomy firsthand.

Fish PaintingSAFS graduate student Bobette Dickerson hosted this ever-popular activity.Kids got to do fish prints with contributions from the Pike Place Market.

HatcheryThe hatchery booth demonstrated how fish see with electricity and showedfish tagging methods.

Hooks & LaddersA game about the obstacles salmon face in migration. This game is availableat our Salmon in the Classroom website: www.fish.washington.edu/sic/resources/hooks_ladders.html.

Dave BeauchampAssistant Professor and Assistant Unit Leader,Washington Cooperative Fish & Wildlife Research Unit

Degrees: MS 1982, behavioral ecology of Arctic grayling; PhD 1987, predator–prey

relationships relating to hatchery rainbow trout in Lake Washington,

School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences, University of Washington

Specialties: aquatic community ecology, food web modeling, native–nonnative interactions,

behavior, population assessment, bioenergetics modeling, hydroacoustics

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onFocus on our new faculty

ave concentrates on food web research.As a post-doc and faculty at the Universityof Utah, he cultivated this focus throughwork on large lakes, including Tahoe,Yellowstone, and Flathead. In 1994, hebecame Assistant Leader–Fisheries for theCoop Unit, the same position he holdshere. A consistent theme underlies his lakeresearch: quantifying linkages amongdifferent species to look for bottlenecksand other factors, such as climate, thatlimit species production or otherwise affectfood web integrity.

His program includes developing forag-ing models of predators to see how indi-vidual behavior affects the overall commu-nity, or “Under what conditions and howoften do predators encounter smaller fishand how does this translate into growthand foraging success?” Such informationis critical for resource managers to deter-mine how systems will respond to change.For example, in the Pacific Northwest, wewant to know if large inputs of hatcherysalmon result in increased predation onor competition with the wild stocks.

Dave has been studying the Lake Wash-ington drainage since the mid-1980s. Tohelp stakeholders determine how to man-age water and endangered salmon, he andcollaborators at UW Civil Engineering andZoology, Seattle, King County, and the

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state are developing a comprehensive foodweb model—filling in the gaps with newfield sampling—to examine whether spe-cies interactions or environmental condi-tions limit production or inhibit recoveryof certain species (e.g, juvenile salmon).

Dave teaches a course in bioenergeticsmodeling—looking at the energy balanceof an organism between growth, consump-tion, and other processes: “We can quan-tify how much food is consumed daily bypopulations of competitors or predators tosee how ecological bottlenecks may emergeover time as well as between life stages oramong species.” He is applying this ap-proach to hatchery and wild salmon inPuget Sound with the Washington Depart-ment of Fish & Wildlife.

Kate Myers (principal investigator, SAFSHigh Seas Salmon Research Program), LewHaldorson (University of Alaska Juneau)and Dave will be using such models to seeif huge inputs of hatchery pink salmon inthe Gulf of Alaska are causing growth ratesof Pacific salmon to decline by exceedingcarrying capacity.

Returning to SAFS was a “no-brainer”for Dave, who cited a litany of reasons: apremiere institution with talented people,extensive resources for research and teach-ing, a broad diversity of issues, all levels ofgovernment, and Indian tribes actively

involved in fisheries programs. He added,“There’s easy access to diverse ecosystemsincluding high mountain systems, lowlandlakes, marine systems, reservoirs, and estu-aries. With all the supporting faculty, it’seasy to engage in collaborations that wouldnot be possible at smaller institutions.”

Dave would like to see SAFS take moreof a leadership role in issues such as coher-ent and comprehensive management ofhatchery and wild salmon: “We can helpdevelop approaches that acknowledge theneed for both harvest and conservationon a sustainable basis. It takes patience,tolerance, and skill to stick with a questionlong enough to get groups to identify

common ground and employ reliabletools to achieve long-term solutions tothese complex issues.”

Dave is also a musician; at Utah State heplayed sax in a blues band that includedseveral faculty members. Despite his fullschedule, he still plays on the weekend,as he put it, “to keep my chops up.”

We can help develop approaches

that acknowledge the need for

both harvest and conservation

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John HorneResearch Assistant Professor

Degrees: MSc 1988, larval groundfish habitat preferences, Dalhousie University,

Bedford Institution of Oceanography; PhD 1995, spatial interactions and

predator–prey relationships between cod and capelin off the coast ofNewfoundland, Memorial University, St. John’s

Specialties: fisheries acoustics, aquatic organism distributions, spatial bioenergetics

Website: http://www.acoustics.washington.edu/

Focus on our new faculty continuedR

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L ike most faculty, John wears many hats,but he may be best known for his fisheriesacoustics work. He observed, “Acoustics isan integrative tool including at least sixsubdisciplines: the physics of sound inwater, survey assessment, statistics, andanimal behavior, physiology, and ana-tomy.” This integrative nature makesacoustics applicable to ecological andbehavioral studies, and abundanceestimates.

After completing his PhD, John workedat the SUNY Great Lakes Center withSteve Brandt on spatially explicit bioener-getic modeling. This led to applying bio-energetics in ecological studies such aspredator foraging, habitat quality, and car-rying capacity.

Following a move to the NOAA GreatLakes Environmental Research Lab, Johnfocused on how biology interacts withphysics to influence fisheries acoustic data.More broadly, he was addressing howacoustics might influence abundance andpopulation estimates. He and his col-leagues used echosounders, sector-scan-ning sonar and other methods to measureechoes at different angles and frequencies.

Why does angle matter? John explains,“Two components influence echo ampli-tudes: angle- and frequency-dependentreflection (‘backscattering’).” The amount

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of reflected sound depends on the fishand swimbladder angles, relative to thetransducer. He notes, “It’s analogous tobouncing a ball off a flat wall versus atilted wall.” Then there is frequency:“If you shine a light on a painting, yourperception varies depending on whetherthe light is red or green because of thedifferent wavelengths.” The informationthat can be collected on a target hasgreatly improved by broadening thefrequency range as well as the numberof perspective angles.

John collaborates with SAFS andNOAA Fisheries’ Resource Assessmentand Conservation Engineering division(Alaska Fisheries Science Center [AFSC]).“I’ll be focusing on the distributional ecol-ogy and acoustics of walleye pollock, Pa-cific hake (whiting), but also salmonthrough the riverine assessment people inAlaska.” This doesn’t preclude freshwaterspecies, as inquiries from around theworld continue to arrive.

As ecosystem management evolves, thedemand will grow for non-invasive, con-tinuous sampling. The number of peopletrained in fisheries acoustics does not meetcurrent demand. John said, “Despite this,an academic fisheries acoustics programhas been unavailable in this area.”

John sees SAFS as having a strong role

in training undergraduates and graduatestudents through the curriculum and col-laborative research with AFSC: “NMFS isvery good at doing surveys, but they don’thave the time to pursue the research theywould like to. My joint affiliation gives methe best of both worlds: for example, re-sults here can be implemented immedi-ately in current AFSC surveys for assessingAlaska stocks.”

John is enthusiastic about several initia-tives starting at the school: “This summer,there’s a joint UW–AFSC summer intern-ship program for SAFS undergraduates.”Further, the Pacific Whiting ConservationCooperative is funding graduate studenttraining and research starting next fall, anda post-doc will have a joint SAFS–AFSCposition.

Summing up, John emphasized thenontraditional nature of his position,which is essentially a split appointmentbetween SAFS and AFSC, with supportfrom industry: “It’s like an unofficial‘chair’ position and that’s how I’m treatingit. I am very excited about my position andthe numerous opportunities for collabora-tion. A lot of people are very interested inwhat we are doing.”

John and his wife are relative new-comers to Seattle, and spend their freetime exploring the Pacific Northwest.

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Kerry NaishAssistant Professor

Degrees: MS 1989, stock identification and stock assessment in Cape horse

mackerel, University of Rhodes, Grahamstown, South Africa;

PhD 1993, Biological Science, fishery genetics—kin selection in shoaling

fish, University of Wales, Swanzee, UK

Specialties: quantitative genetics, focusing on conservation and aquaculture

K erry grew up in the Zimbabwean bush.Her parents’ various jobs kept her in closeproximity to wild animals, which she cred-its partly for her career choice. After earn-ing her PhD, she worked on fish geneticsin West Africa and the Philippines for aBritish aid organization, but soon decidedto move back to academia: “I was moreinterested in finding answers to the ques-tions than in policy decisions.”

Most recently, Kerry held a post-docposition at NMFS’ Montlake lab, workingwithin the Conservation Biology groupwith Linda Park and Jeff Hard on quantita-tive genetics—which examines the interac-tion between an organism’s genes and itsenvironment—and molecular genetics toaddress issues arising in conservation:Until the mid-1900s, scientists focused onquantitative approaches, acquiring statis-tics and developing theories. Kerry notes,“With molecular genetics, we can test thesetheories and try to better define what it iswe are trying to conserve.” Scientists havebeen trying to conserve taxa, species, assem-blages, lineages—‘looking back’—but now,“We’re poised to try to conserve life historystrategies, concentrating on diversity thatallows the animal to evolve with a changingenvironment—‘looking forward’.”

The Endangered Species Act was theimpetus for Kerry’s focus on chinook and

coho salmon but also, coho are the “idealPacific salmon—simple life history strategycombined with a short life span.” Practicalapplications of her work include determin-ing whether hatcheries change fitness char-acters in hatchery salmon, and examiningthe consequences of interbreeding betweenhatchery and wild salmon. She is alsodeveloping a program in shellfish aqua-culture: “The questions are the same; youare still trying to preserve genetic varia-bility, but in this case, you’re selecting forthe most fit organism.”

Kerry came to SAFS because of its well-established research programs in salmonids,conservation, and genetics, which offer agreat opportunity for collaborative efforts.For example, she hopes to work with TomQuinn on the genetic basis of salmon lifehistory traits—essentially “fitness traits”—and Walt Dickhoff on the environmentalcomponent of fitness traits. She is alsoexploring shellfish aquaculture researchwith Joth Davis at Taylor Shellfish Farms.

She was attracted to SAFS’ emphasis onconservation management in its teachingprogram. Next fall, she will teach Fish 444,Conservation Genetics, incorporating along-term hatchery project that measuresthe effects of inbreeding on salmon popu-lations: “I hope to attract students fromForestry, Botany, and Zoology as well as

SAFS because the class content is relevantacross many different disciplines.” Andshe taught Biology 102 in Spring Quarter,which she saw as an excellent opportunityto recruit undergraduates to SAFS.

Kerry notes, “We are moving more to-wards conservation, in part as a responseto regional issues. I think we will look atbasic scientific questions that can be ap-plied to conservation in industry.”

She considers SAFS’ integration a realplus: “People know where we are and howwe serve the community. I get the impres-sion that, as a department, we have a verystrong and highly visible commitment tocommunity service, as in outreach pro-grams like Salmon in the Classroom andin our liaisons with community colleges.”

Kerry has traveled a lot in Africa, Europe,and Central America and plans to go toSouth America and Asia. She is very inter-ested in world music and jazz, and in poli-tics and social issues: “It’s a reflection ofwhere I come from.”

Her goal is to answer the

question, "What are we

trying to conserve?

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Julia ParrishAssistant Professor

Degree: PhD 1988, Zoology, costs and benefits of schooling in fish,

Duke University

Specialties: animal aggregation, predator–prey interactions, marine conservation

Website: http://depts.washington.edu/birdfish/

Focus on our new faculty continued

J ulia is intrigued with gregarious animals:“From insects to fish to birds, animalgroups rule.” She is also very interested inconservation biology, which she describesas breaking down the wall between basicand applied research: “It acknowledges theimpacts humans have on ecosystems; oncethat happens, how can you say it’s notapplied?”

Several years after graduate school, Juliaaccepted a post-doc at SAFS where herwork on seabirds started. She then joinedthe UW Institute for Environmental Stud-ies, working with Dee Boersma. Julianotes, “Dee helped me define my careerpath in terms of research, grantsmanship,and teaching.” In 1995, she went to UWZoology as a research assistant professor.

Whether it’s birds or fishes, Julia hasstudied animal groups since graduateschool. She currently is collaborating withDanny Grunbaum (UW Oceanography),with whom she’s established an interactivefish film studio to explore “traffic rules forfish schools.”

Julia described why studying schoolingbehavior is important: “Many of theworld’s commercially harvested finfishspecies school. Fisheries managers needto understand schooling dynamics toestimate sustainable harvest levels.”

The other application is much broader.By determining how individual group

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members—who have no sense of the whole—communicate with each other and con-tribute to group-level behavior, Julia andher colleagues hope to develop a modelfor sending a networked robotic system—one with no central “brain”—on search andrescue missions in hostile environments,like the deep ocean.

Julia also studies seabird biology, princi-pally Common Murres, a colonial seabirdwith real pluses compared with schoolingfish: “They’re active during the day andsleep at night—always nice for us; they’reeasy to see because they nest on theground; and they’re long-lived so you canstudy them year to year.”

Initially she sought to explore the effectsof group size, or as she put it, “Does sizematter? The literature suggests it does, butobviously the murres had not read the liter-ature: they didn’t behave according to thepredictions, so I set out to discover why.”

The murre studies have been ongoingfor ten years at sites such as TatooshIsland, Washington, yielding data onseabird ecology, and demography, whichJulia described as “How many birds areat the party and how well do they doreproductively?” She notes that, besidescontributing basic information on thebenefits of groupiness, Common Murresare a good “canary in the coal mine” innearshore environments because of their

disproportionate mortality from oil spillsand gillnet bycatch compared with otherseabirds. This sensitivity was the impetusfor a gradual shift to more applied studiesin marine conservation.

Julia’s pursuit of marine conservation iswhy she has faculty appointments withSAFS, Zoology, and the Program on theEnvironment—her way of furthering col-laboration between the big players in thisarena. As important as conservation re-search is, she objects to notions that it isreplacing SAFS’ historical emphasis onresource extraction: “Contrasting extrac-tion and conservation as opposing ele-ments is both simplistic and harmful.” Sheconsiders SAFS to have a key role in thescience and in presenting the complexityof resource use and management issues tothe public: “We have the ability to movethe dialog in a positive direction.”

Julia is adamant about acknowledgingthe students and staff in her lab: “I couldnot have the kind of programs I do—frombasic and applied science problems tocitizen science, education, and outreach—without them. I just pay the bills; theymake it happen.”

When asked what she does when notinvolved in outreach, teaching, andresearch, Julia quipped, “I try to cook agood meal with my also overly Type-Ahusband and try to get some sleep!”

André PuntResearch Associate Professor

Degrees: MS 1988, Applied Mathematics, stock assessment methods for cape hake;

PhD 1991, Applied Mathematics, Cape hake and baleen whale

management, University of Capetown, South Africa

Specialties: biomathematics, harvest theory, multispecies modeling, population

dynamics, stock assessment

M. P

unt

A ndré applies mathematical models todetermine the impact, in quantitativeterms, of management approaches for re-newable marine resources. His focus hasbeen methods for fisheries stock assess-ment and decision analysis.

As part of his PhD, he modeled the bio-logical interaction between shallow-waterand deep-water Cape hake to identifydecision rules that avoided stock collapsebut also achieved reasonable levels ofsustainable catch. He noted “The rule thatcame from my PhD work was used for tenyears,” but wryly added, “they’re justrubbishing it at the moment!” This workexpanded to address the impact of increas-ing numbers of seals on hake and theimpact of seal culls on fishery yields.

André did his post-doc at SAFS, workingon stock assessment for the orange roughyand hoki fisheries off New Zealand withEllen Pikitch and Ray Hilborn. His workwas “full of conflict,” largely due to thecontested nature of the Bayesian assess-ments. André elaborated, “For most stockassessments, data are too few to draw firmconclusions. Bayesian methods addressthis by combining data for the species ofinterest with data/information for otherspecies.” He considers SAFS to be theleader in Bayesian fishery stock assessmentapplications.

Most recently, André was a Principal

Research Scientist for CSIRO in Australia,where he conducted research on sharks,demersal fish species, and coral trout onthe Great Barrier Reef. The latter workentailed evaluating experimental manage-ment regimes: “We designed an experi-ment in which some marine park reefswere opened to intensive fishing to quan-tify impacts and estimate biomass” he said.

At SAFS, André is studying West Coastgroundfish; in particular, testing stockassessment techniques. Also, he is investi-gating how the sedentary nature of rock-fish relates to stock structure uncertainty:“Managing a stock as one big populationwhen there are multiple populations couldbe catastrophic,” he said.

He also conducts whale research and hasparticipated in the Scientific Committeeof the International Whaling Commissionsince 1990. Currently, he is focusing onmanagement of aboriginal whaling—devel-oping rules to determine the limits on thenumber of whales an aboriginal commu-nity can harvest without impacting therecovery rates for overexploited popula-tions. He contributed to the InternationalWhaling Commission’s assessment of thebiological implications of the MakahIndians’ resumed whaling.

While not required of him, André doesplan to teach, and he will be getting SAFSgraduate students involved in his research:

“SAFS has always excelled in quantitativestock assessment and has graduated severalof the top people in this area.” He hadother motivations to join an academicinstitution as well: “I’ve mostly worked atthe agency level. SAFS appealed to mebecause I want to work for an organizationthat has people who are sincerely commit-ted to making a difference.”

Regarding SAFS’ future, André said, “I’dlike to see our quantitative faculty, ofwhich I’m a member, build a more com-prehensive curriculum and promote it.The school has a very good reputation inthis area, but we’ve lost some facultyrecently. We need to make ourselves morevisible and more cohesive.” This is wherehe hopes to make a difference; he’s seen,in the agency sense, that many studentseducated in fisheries often don’t havestrong quantitative skills, and wants tohelp ensure that SAFS provides theseskills.

André is married with one child. Likeother newcomers, his family is getting toknow Seattle and the general area. ■

SAFS has always excelled in

quantitative stock assessment

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Gifts &A Q U AT I C F I S H E R YS C I E N C E SS C I E N C E SS C I E N C E SS C I E N C E SS C I E N C E S

he School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences is very fortunate to be the recipientof many generous donations from alumni and friends. This is especially impor-tant because State funding constitutes only 16% of the total support necessaryto maintain the high scholarship of the University. We wish to thank all oursupporters for the integral role they play in helping us maintain the excellentquality of our programs.

We are very pleased to announce the continuation of support from theIngeborg Short Foundation for the Jensen Fellowship. Mrs. Short establishedthis fellowship to honor her father, Roy Jensen, who founded Ocean BeautySeafoods and played a key role in establishing Seattle’s strong presence in thePacific Northwest fishing industry.

The SAFS Scholarship Committee is delighted to announce that PhD gradu-ate student Brent Vadopalas has been selected to receive this honor. Brent iscompleting his research on the potential genetic risks of aquaculture activitieson naturally occurring populations of geoducks in Puget Sound. The results ofhis research will have important implications for managing the commercial fish-ery for geoducks and possibly other benthic invertebrates. How appropriate thatthe fellowship—honoring a man who supported commercial fisheries in ourarea—is going to a student who will contribute to the well being and perpetua-tion of such a fishery.

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