Zoe Rand, QERM PhD student, chosen as College of the Environment Graduate Dean’s Medalist
Zoe Rand is a recipient of this year’s College of the Environment Graduate Dean’s Medalist award, a PhD student in the Quantitative Ecology & Resource Management (QERM) Program and member of SAFS Professor Trevor Branch’s lab. Congratulations Zoe!
“Being a part of the College of the Environment, QERM, and SAFS communities is something I am very proud of, and I have loved being a part of it, so it is nice to be recognized for my contributions towards this community,” Zoe said.
The Graduate Dean’s Medalist award recognizes graduate students based on outstanding academic achievement, as well as outstanding leadership or service, on or off campus. Zoe ticks all of these boxes, with Zoe’s nominator sharing that Zoe excelled in so many different dimensions that it was hard to list only a few for the nomination letter: “Seven peer-reviewed publications, six assessment documents, two best poster awards at conferences on marine mammals and on seabirds, multiple heavy duty service assignments, undergraduate mentoring, teaching at high schools, and through all of this, a fabulous attitude overcoming all obstacles with a level, mature attitude and an infectious laugh.”
Zoe uses mathematical and statistical models to study the population dynamics of baleen whales, using primarily historical data from whaling records, looking at questions related to movement, population size, and demographic rates. In relation to population assessments for Antarctic blue whales, Zoe’s method was two orders of magnitude more efficient than previous methods, and Zoe is now working to expand this model to produce the first integrated assessment that fits directly to the available mark-recapture data from photo-ID.
Serving in a wide variety of leadership and service roles while at UW, Zoe was a mentor for the Identity Belonging and Inquiry in Science (IBIS) Program, mentoring undergraduate Ashley Rendon during a project looking at growth rates of Antarctic blue whales in utero. “Mentoring Ashley was a great experience. Her passion and excitement for the project was inspiring, and I think I learned to more deeply understand my own research in the process of answering her questions and guiding her in her project,” Zoe shared.
These acts of service for the UW community also involved running the SAFS Quantitative Seminars for a whole year and participating in the College of the Environment Student Advisory Council and the SAFS Curriculum Committee. “Being involved in the Student Advisory Council and the SAFS Curriculum Committee gave me a deeper appreciation for the inner workings of the UW and the work that goes into making the College and the department what it is,” Zoe said. “I’ve also had booths or volunteered at the SEAS Open House during my time, and that’s one of my favorite events of the year, just to see the community so excited about our work.”
As a student in the QERM program and a member of a SAFS lab, Zoe has appreciated being able to build community within both. “I really value the SAFS and QERM graduate student communities. Everyone really supports each other, and I couldn’t have made it through graduate school without them,” Zoe said.
The Graduate Dean’s Medalist is not the first award Zoe has received. At the 25th Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals—a leading global event—Zoe won Best Student Presentation from North America. Zoe also won the best student poster presentation at the 2024 Pacific Seabird Group Annual Meeting, while Zoe’s PhD work at UW has been funded through a prestigious NMFS-Sea Grant Population Dynamics Fellowship awarded in 2023.