School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences

Keith Bosley

I’m from a small island off the coast of Maine and was never in doubt that I would work in fisheries in some way during my career. However, I did not have a well-organized plan, and my path to the University of Washington began by following my wife to Washington state after our graduation from Dartmouth College. I spent several years working a variety of “odd jobs,” from trapping flying squirrels to electrofishing the small streams of the Olympic Peninsula before realizing I needed to pursue graduate school. My first attempt at joining the School of Fisheries did not pan out (I was rejected!), but, some evening math classes, and regular attendance at the weekly departmental seminars, helped me sharpen my focus and begin to make connections in the School. When Ray Hilborn and Thomas Quinn invited me to join the Alaska Salmon Program in 1999, I immediately signed up to go north for the summer before I officially started my MS.

I have been lucky to have been surrounded by exceptional scientists throughout my career, learning directly from them and emulating them, and this period was no exception. I spent several summers working in Alaska with a fun and diverse group of students, staff, and faculty; many of whom I still see on a regular basis. Just before earning my MS in 2001, Ray encouraged me to apply for the still relatively new National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS)/National Sea Grant population dynamics fellowship. Instead of taking a year off to travel, I moved directly into the PhD program. My peers in the fellowship included individuals now working as stock assessment scientists for at least three NMFS Science Centers, as well as UW graduates Alan Haynie (UW Economics, 2005), Melissa Haltuch (PhD, 2008), and Eric Ward (PhD, 2006).

In 2004 (yes, a couple of years before earning my PhD), I moved into a full-time position as a stock assessment scientist for the NMFS Northwest Fisheries Science Center, contributing to many assessments and rebuilding plans for west coast groundfish species. I greatly enjoyed working there with a large group of UW graduates including Jason Cope (PhD, 2009), Chantel Wetzel (MS, 2011; PhD, 2017), Ian Taylor (PhD QERM, 2008), Owen Hamel (PhD QERM, 2001), John Wallace (MS Biostatistics, 1986) and Allan Hicks (PhD, 2013). At many times, it really felt like we had just moved the SAFS graduate student offices across the Montlake cut. I finished my degree in 2006, benefiting greatly from the support of my colleagues at NMFS.

I am currently a quantitative scientist for the International Pacific Halibut Commission, where I have led the annual stock assessment since 2012. My recent research has focused on improving stock assessment methods, characterizing uncertainty, and the development of modeling and presentation approaches to support multi-model based risk assessment.  I work closely with Allan Hicks, as well as Lauri Sadorus (MS, 2012) and Josep Planas (PhD, 1993), with an occasional piece of advice from the retired Bill Clark (PhD, 1975). The history of the IPHC includes too many SAFS graduates to name—my position alone has been held by at least five UW graduates, and probably more; I often feel like I have stepped into some very large shoes.

I have been honored to serve as affiliate faculty at SAFS since 2012, and my work with SAFS graduate and undergraduate students is one of the most rewarding aspects of my career. I am constantly amazed at how the skills and diversity of SAFS students continue to exceed previous students, and I look forward to many more years of collaboration.

Levy Boitor

At the age of five, I was bitten with marine biology when a crab pinched my toe. Ever since, I have sought justice by eating as many crabs as possible.

Fascinated by Jacques Cousteau, I became a scuba diver at thirteen, solidifying my desire to become a marine biologist. After earning my BS in Biology at the University of Cincinnati, I spent a year as a full-time rock-and-roll drummer, before deciding that it was time to go to grad school. At the College of Charleston, I studied reproductive physiology of the knobbed whelk, Busycon carica, and learned that I did not like being cooped up in a chemistry lab, but preferred spending time outdoors searching for whelks, observing their natural environment, and learning about the ecosystem in which they lived.

Upon receiving my MS in 1976, I began looking for my dream job, scuba diving on coral reefs, but discovered that, following creation of the 200-mile EEZ, the Federal Government was hiring fishery biologists by the dozens. Seeing the writing on the wall, I applied and was accepted into the PhD program in Fisheries at the University of Washington. My first advisor was Ken Chew, who had 30 grad students, literally everyone who wasn’t studying salmon. A summer job as a NMFS observer was my first professional job, where I learned to key out rockfish (all those spines!). After taking classes for two years, I still had no research funding, so I took a job with the Washington Department of Fisheries. That led me to Grays Harbor, Washington, where I began studying the impact of dredging on Dungeness crabs. In my spare time, I began writing grant proposals and eventually garnered a contract with the US Army Corps of Engineers for the amazing sum of $70,000 to support my PhD research. With grant in hand, I went back to the University, enlisted David Armstrong as my new advisor, and began my work, finally receiving my PhD in June 1982, with the thesis topic, “Distribution, abundance, and food habits of the Dungeness Crab, in Grays Harbor, Washington.”

After graduation, I landed a permanent job with NMFS in Kodiak Alaska, where I stayed for 22 years. During that time, I studied reproductive biology of snow, Tanner, and king crabs; spent a year in Japan learning aquaculture; and started a king crab aquaculture project. I also made over 60 dives in submersibles (including Alvin) to study deep-sea crabs and discovered the 1860 wreck of the Russian 3-masted ship “Kad’yak,” which is the subject of a book that I recently published.

Needing a change, I left NOAA in 2006 for academia, eventually coming to the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, where I am now a tenured full professor of Marine Science. My students and I still study reproductive biology of crabs, and I eat them at every opportunity.

I first visited the College of Fisheries in July 1962 and met with Alan DeLacy (MS, 1933; PhD, 1941), who became my undergraduate advisor. I learned about the College from Dale Schoeneman who worked for the Washington Department of Fisheries. He was from my hometown (Wenatchee) and advertised Camel cigarettes in national magazines! At the time, I was debating whether to major in engineering or biology. Dale conducted research on salmon passage over dams and worked alongside engineers. He was not encouraging because of the low pay for fishery biologists, but after reading the College’s catalog, I was convinced that I should pursue fishery biology. After my freshmen year of taking calculus, chemistry, and physics, I signed up for fish taxonomy with Arthur Welander (MS, 1940; PhD, 1946) and commercially important invertebrates with Al Sparks, followed by a year of marine fisheries with Alan DeLacy.  When I became the RACE Division Director at the AFSC in 1986, I found that the job involved being Al Sparks’s boss. Conducting his annual performance review was always intimidating to say the least!

It was Doug Chapman’s applied statistics classes during my junior year that introduced me to the quantitative analysis side of fishery research. During spring break 1964, I was hired by Bob Ting (PhD, 1965), who studied under Dean Van Cleve, to assist with his benthic fauna study of Puget Sound. At the end of the week, we returned to the College of Fisheries dock on Good Friday in the late afternoon of March 27.  Captain Tom Oswald had extreme difficulties landing the vessel; the Commando surged back and forth slamming into the dock about three or four times. Later that night, I learned about the great Alaskan earthquake!

Later that spring, Bob recommended me to Jim Mason at the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries for a summer fishery technician job collecting sockeye salmon scales from the major sockeye rivers in Alaska under the leadership of Jean Dunn (who years later worked in the RACE Division at NMFS during my time in the Division).

I spent the summers of 1964 and 1965 flying and driving, where possible, to almost all the major Alaskan sockeye rivers—from the Copper River in Prince William Sound to the Wood River system in Bristol Bay, including the rivers on Kodiak and in the Cook Inlet. That was an amazing experience and education in salmon biology and management. I have many lasting memories of that time, including seeing first-hand the destruction of Alaskan cities and ports by the earthquake and resulting tidal waves. Upon my return to Seattle in August 1965, I was hired by Denny Miller (MS, 1965) as a technician to assist Marty Nelson (MS, 1966), who was monitoring the adult chinook return to the Duwamish River in Elliott Bay.

After I graduated in 1966, I was offered a research assistantship with FRI to take over for Marty, who had left for a permanent job with the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries (Marty also lead the Acoustic Survey Program in the RACE Division at NMFS during my time there). I had not thought about going to graduate school, but I couldn’t pass up this opportunity.  Gerald Paulik (PhD, 1959) offered to be my major professor for my MS, and I enrolled in June 1966. Jerry Wetherall (PhD, 1971) was also offered an assistantship to monitor the downstream migration of chinook smolts from the Green River hatchery. We both signed up for Gerry Paulik’s population dynamics classes starting in the fall of 1966. Unbeknownst to us, Gerry shuffled his syllabus for his three-class series so that Jerry and I could be immersed in mark/recapture analytical models in the fall rather than the spring, which was critical to the progress of our research. I was asked to lead the adult research for the third year, but told that I would not be responsible for including the 1967 research in my thesis. That became the responsibility of Jeff Fujioka (MS, 1970; PhD, 1978), who has been a life-long friend. As a result, I did not finish my MS until the end of fall quarter 1969.

In the midst of my MS studies, I met my future wife, Diane, who worked in the FRI front office. In those years, almost all of the fishery students were men, and the few women that they met worked for the College or FRI. As a result, marriages of employed women and fisheries students were common. In the spring of 1968, Doug Chapman and Gerry Paulik offered me one of the five Ford Foundation Scholarships with the newly established Center for Quantitative Science to pursue a PhD in Fisheries. If I recall correctly, the other four graduate students offered scholarships in the first year were Bill Fox (PhD, 1972), Gil Robinson (PhD, 1972) from South Africa, Ray Bressler (economics), and Bill Farr (forestry). Bill Clark (PhD, 1975) and Jim Balsiger (PhD, 1974) joined CQS in 1969. Both Fox and Balsiger served as Science Directors for NOAA/NMFS and as assistant administrators for NOAA Fisheries.

I left the College for one year to work for the Quinault Indian Tribe as a fishery biologist for their new nature resources program after I passed the foreign language exam and general exam for my PhD. I returned in 1972 to finish my PhD thesis on a growth model for predicting weekly growth rates of salmon reared in hatcheries. Gerry Paulik passed away suddenly in fall 1972. This was a great shock to everyone in the College. He was an inspiration and mentor to us all. Doug Chapman told those of us who had Gerry as our major professor not to worry as he would take over. My PhD thesis and defense were completed in March 1973, at which time Tim Smith (PhD, Biotstat, 1973)­­ and I took a job with NMFS at the SWFSC and moved our families to La Jolla, California. We were hired by Brian Rothschild (who served on my MS committee) and Bill Fox, our new supervisor, to work in the new Tuna/Porpoise Program.

During my nine years in La Jolla, I kept in touch with my friends at the College and frequently recommended the College to students interested in pursuing undergraduate or graduate degrees in fisheries. I returned to Seattle in 1982 when I transferred to the Northwest and Alaska Fisheries Science Center. I was appointed to the affiliate faculty soon thereafter. I lectured for Don Gunderson’s class on research survey methods and led some classes for the graduate seminar series, which introduced me to several graduate students. I served on graduate student committees while I was the director of the RACE Division. I also provided funds to cover tuition for NMFS/RACE biologists interested in graduate training to advance their quantitative skills. In addition, RACE funded university projects in support of graduate students on topics of interest to NMFS and particularly in support of the Fish Collection directed by Ted Pietsch. I am most proud of the fishery graduate students that we hired—in particular, two ichthyologists trained by Ted Pietsch (Jay Orr [PhD, 1995] and Duane Stevenson [PhD, 2002]). I was also instrumental in recruiting and funding John Horne to the School’s faculty to re-establish the fishery acoustics curriculum.

During my term as RACE director, Don Bevan was a faithful supporter of the NMFS budget at the congressional level, but never once did he suggest that we would need to contribute funding to the College in return. As a side note, a memory that I will honor forever was the day that I admitted my mother to University Hospital just behind Don as he was going in for his third heart bypass surgery. We had a short time to visit, but I unfortunately did not thank him for his years of support and contribution to my professional development and career. He passed away during the surgery.

My association with the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences and its predecessor, the College of Fisheries, has been 56 years in the making and has been at the center of just about every one of my major life-making decisions; I will be forever indebted to SAFS and its faculty, past and present.

I grew up fishing in the Rocky Mountains of Canada and off the coast of central California. It was when I was a dockworker and unloading fishing boats in Port San Luis, California that I realized I wanted to become more involved with the assessment and management of fisheries. After earning a BS in fisheries from Humboldt State University (advisor David Hankin) and an MS in statistics from the University of Idaho (advisor Ken Newman), I accepted a position in New Zealand as a fisheries modeler, which was an incredible learning experience. While in New Zealand, I met Ray Hilborn and learned more about the research and teaching being done at SAFS. I soon decided to pursue a PhD at SAFS.

I was very fortunate to be a part of the SAFS community, especially the 2004 cohort. This cohort included Carey McGilliard (MS, 2007; PhD, 2012), Lauren Rogers (PhD, 2010), Neala Kendall (MS, 2007; PhD, 2011), George Pess (PhD, 2009) and many others who are prominent in fisheries science today. I also met many other students and postdocs at that time that became good friends and collaborators, including Juan Valero (MS 2001; PhD, 2011), Melissa Haltuch (PhD, 2008), Arni Magnusson (MS, 2002; PhD, 2016), Matt Baker (PhD, 2011), Jason Cope (PhD, 2009), Gavin Fay (MS, 2004; PhD, 2012), Ian Taylor (QERM PhD, 2008), Nathan Taylor (postdoc, 2006–2008) and many, many more. The SAFS community enhanced my education and career, and I am forever grateful to those friends and for that experience. Furthermore, the faculty are exceptional! Ray Hilborn, André Punt, Tim Essington, and John Horne pushed me beyond limits that I did not think could be exceeded. They not only taught me about fisheries science, they provided many opportunities to gain experience working in fisheries and to further my career.

An advisor can influence and shape a student in many ways, and I am very grateful for the mentoring that Ray Hilborn provided. He provided opportunities for me to continue working on stock assessments in New Zealand, sampling and tagging sockeye salmon in Alaska, attending conferences, and teaching classes. Outside of fisheries, I was able to experience spit roasting whole animals, fishing off the beaches of Puget Sound, kayaking and canoeing in many lakes, and tasting delectable wines from around the world. Ray also introduced me to many other prominent fisheries scientists that subsequently became good friends.

I always wanted to remain involved with SAFS, so I maximized my time there. However, I couldn’t stay forever, and finally graduated in 2013. While finishing my PhD I took a job at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center, working along many other SAFS graduates on stock assessment of west coast groundfish. After seven years working at the NWFSC, I moved to the International Pacific Halibut Commission (IPHC), where I am currently working on management strategy evaluation and harvest policy with Ian Stewart (MS, 2001; PhD, 2006). I quickly realized that all of the major fisheries research centers in Seattle and beyond are populated with SAFS graduates, and have a long history of employing SAFS graduates.

Overall, I wouldn’t trade in my experience at SAFS for anything. The people associated with the School are amazing and have influenced me in so many ways. I am very impressed with SAFS and strive to remain involved however I can.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve known I wanted to be a marine biologist (of some sort). My first experience with marine biology was during a high school class trip to Patagonia. I was thirteen, and got to see right whales, elephant seals, and penguins in their natural habitat, something that was out of the ordinary for someone growing up on the margins of the River Plate (Montevideo). Then, during my first year at university, I was lucky enough to join the Uruguayan Antarctic science program to study breeding success in Gentoo penguins. That venture took more than seven years, passing through population dynamics of penguins, to smelly studies of the diet of Antarctic fur seals, to routine impact assessments of human activities at King George Island.

In Spanish, we say, “la tercera es la vencida” (the third time’s the charm), and I finally got to the fisheries world by applying for an internship at the Fisheries Institute in Uruguay. My job was to understand the spatial patterns of a newly developed scallop fishery under the supervision of Omar Defeo, who later became a mentor for my BS and MS degrees, and a dear, long-time friend. Omar was not only instrumental in introducing me to the fisheries world, but also in convincing me that fishery science was not only fun, but also very much needed in our country and region. A few years later, and thanks to a Fulbright scholarship and SAFS generosity, I was boarding a plane to Seattle to meet my PhD supervisor, Ray Hilborn. This was part of an effort to improve my quantitative skills and to learn as much as possible from SAFS faculty and an outstanding cohort of students (including the “Latino group”—Julian Burgos [PhD, 2008], Alex Aires da Silva [PhD, 2008], Carolina Minte-Vera [PhD, 2004], Alex Zerbini [PhD, 2006], and many others).

During my time at SAFS, I took some of the most challenging, but rewarding and motivating, courses of my career. Luckily, I was not the only one struggling with homework and labs, so I joined forces with my course mates and spent hours trying to decipher André Punt’s mind-boggling, clever exercises. But man, that feeling of actually solving them! Of course, not everything was 450s and 500s; Ray was kind enough to send me to Southern California to dive with Peter Halmay, a sea urchin fisherman leading an exciting community-based data collection program. This allowed me to understand fishery problems firsthand, and not just from the perspective of a scientist or manager, but also from the perspective of the fishing community itself. I used the data I collected to develop a spatially explicit, individual-based model that can be used to explore alternative scenarios related to cooperative fishing, and I also became very interested in understanding the basis for successful co-management, which led to a rewarding paper in Nature.

After six years at SAFS, I decided to take up a position at the London-based Marine Stewardship Council, where I then became the Head of Research. Fisheries certification was taking off back then, and I saw this role as a great opportunity to apply my quantitative and analytical skills, together with some strategic thinking on how to use market-based incentives to improve fisheries sustainability. I now work for the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) based in Rome, Italy, where I support the design and implementation of programs to assist countries in their tuna resource assessments, fisheries research, and management activities. I also work alongside academic and research centers to develop capacity building programs on fisheries assessment and management, particularly in data-limited situations and for developing world fisheries.

My time at SAFS was a true inflection point in my career. The available courses are not only highly diverse, but they also have the right combination of highly skilled and experienced teachers, hands-on labs, lectures by outstanding scientists showcasing real world examples, and in some cases, exciting field work (Ray’s course in salmon management in Aleknagik, Alaska is hard to beat). SAFS is not just about academic training, but also about working with fishers, managers, policy-makers and industry to truly understand how fisheries science works in the real world. I will be forever grateful for that opportunity.

One of the joys of getting older is that a person can begin to appreciate the threads that bring one to this place in time and space.

My late wife Karen and I arrived in Seattle on Labor Day weekend 1983 from New England to begin my PhD studies at SAFS with Dave Armstrong, who at the time had designs for me to spend significant ship time in the Bering Sea working on king crab population dynamics. However, I had just completed an MES (Master of Environmental Studies) at Yale University, had worked for years under the tutelage of pioneers in shellfish aquaculture in Woods Hole and Fishers Island, and had come to believe that sustainable protein production through farming the seas was actually possible. So, with Dave’s blessing, I switched over to work with Ken Chew for my PhD, a decision I have never regretted.

I worked at the small UW shellfish hatchery that Ken had established with the blessing of NOAA in Manchester. There, I started baseline research on triploid oyster physiology. I inherited a desk chair that had proved fecund for two of my predecessors (Jim Perdue [PhD, 1983], former student of Ken’s who went on to take over the family chicken rearing business in Maryland had his kids during his PhD at SAFS. Also, Hal Beattie [MS, 1978] who studied with Ken as well reportedly had the same experience – kids during grad school), and while I spent a lot of time in the field measuring oyster physiology, I also had three children deep in the heart of my PhD research. That, and starting a fledgling shellfish aquaculture business on tidelands Karen and I found on Hood Canal, slowed me down on my studies but also gave us the foothold in the Pacific Northwest that we had always really wanted.

Early on, and post PhD, I co-taught Molluscan Biology and Aquaculture with Ken Chew before joining Faye Dong to teach Sustainable Aquaculture for a couple of years. I have served SAFS as an affiliate faculty member since 2002 and as a member of graduate supervisory committees, and I have conducted collaborative research with all SAFS faculty to date who have interests in shellfish!

I have now worked with Taylor Shellfish for twenty years as director of Hatchery Research, while also growing a family and the family shellfish business, Baywater, Inc. I am a member of the Puget Sound Restoration Fund (PSRF) as a senior scientist, and am currently working with the Paul J. Allen Family Foundation (Vulcan Philanthropy) to see if seaweeds grown at local scales can assist in mitigating the corrosive effects that acidified seawater has on calcifiers, including mollusks.

I worked with the PSRF to establish the Kenneth K. Chew Center for Shellfish Research and Restoration. The new hatchery facility is a fitting tribute to Ken and to his legacy in shellfish research— he is another pioneer in shellfish aquaculture with whom I’ve had the pleasure to work. I served the National Shellfisheries Association for many years, including as president of the Association from 2009 to 2011.

Recently, I co-founded Pacific Hybreed, Inc., with University of Southern California Professor Dennis Hedgecock, the recipient of the first SAFS Kenneth K. Chew Endowed Professorship in Aquaculture award. Pacific Hybreed is a technology company focused on shellfish breeding that coincidently has its hatchery base in Manchester, this time with a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with NOAA.  My younger son Caleb is managing the shellfish company now, so the circle is complete there too.

SAFS has been a big part of my career working in shellfish and I treasure my time spent there, especially during the many years following my degree, collaborating with SAFS faculty and students. Having the pleasure of working with graduate students is a true joy in life, and I suppose I am most gratified just helping to expose them to the wonderful world of shellfish.

Growing up in Ohio next to a river, I developed an interest in fish at an early age, and—thanks to television, National Geographic, and Jacques Cousteau—a fascination with the ocean. When it came time to go to college, I decided that I wanted to go to a school with an oceanography program (at the time I didn’t even know there was a field called fisheries science). So, having an older sister who lived in Seattle, and with the UW offering oceanography, off I went to college in the summer of 1973. Soon after arriving in Seattle, and while going through the UW course catalog, my brother-in-law pointed out that there was a College of Fisheries and maybe I should check that out. After more investigation into the fisheries program I determined that fisheries science held a much greater appeal to me than oceanography, so I quickly changed majors.

Through my course work, I discovered two parts of fishery science that especially appealed to me—the quantitative aspects and computers/computer programming. In my junior year, I had the great good fortune of being hired by Allan Hartt as a student intern on the High Seas Salmon Tagging project in the Fisheries Research Institute. This project conducted salmon tagging annually on a 50-mile transect off Adak Island in the Aleutian Islands. One purpose of this research was to determine the stock origins of the salmon migrating through this area using tagging, and then to perform some of the earliest applications of scale-pattern analysis to determine the region of origin. The experience I gained from my three years working on this project, both through the field work and the analytical work, formed the basis of my professional career and is directly responsible for all my later career opportunities, my enjoyment of the work, and the longevity of my career.

After graduating with a BS in fisheries in 1978, I continued working as a biologist on the High Seas Project. This eventually led to an offer from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) in 1981 to sponsor an MS project to develop in-season methods of stock separation using scale-pattern analysis for the Chignik sockeye run. This project allowed me to further hone my analytical and computer programming skills (“micro-computers” at a field camp!). After receiving my MS in fisheries in 1983, I was hired by ADF&G, and my wife Miki and I made the long trek north. During my six-year career at ADF&G, I worked for both the commercial fisheries and sport fisheries divisions, and was able to add many new job skills to my resume (creel surveys, mark-recapture studies, and simulation modeling to name a few—plus, I learned the importance of report writing).

In 1989, I was contacted by a friend and fellow SOF graduate (Jim Scott, BS, 1980; MS 1982) about a job opening for a biometrician at the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission (NWIFC). By this time, my family had grown to include three kids, and we missed having regular contact with our families in the lower 48. After deciding we wanted to move south, I applied for the job and was hired. I am currently the manager of the Fisheries Service Division, where I supervise a group of biometricians and biologists that provide statistical analysis and modeling support to the Tribes in their role as co-managers with the State of Washington. I will have been at the NWIFC for 30 years in May 2019. I have enjoyed my work at the NWIFC immensely because it has provided me the opportunity to work with the Tribes on a wide range of problems involving both a variety of species (salmon, halibut, crab, shrimp, terrestrial species) and quantitative methods. It has also provided me the opportunity to represent the Tribes as a technical member on committees in both the Pacific Fishery Management Council and Pacific Salmon Commission.

I am deeply appreciative of the opportunities that my education at the UW and the SOF provided me both professionally and personally. I met my wife who was a nursing student (BS, 1978) at the UW, and my twin sons also graduated from the UW with BS degrees in computer science in 2007.

Although I am not an “alum” in the sense of having been a matriculated student at Fisheries, my time at UW has nevertheless been a major learning experience!

I was introduced to science through the Newark Museum (Newark, NJ) starting at age 4; by age 7, I knew I wanted to be scientist, probably a biologist, maybe a chemist. Of the children in the Newark Museum Nature Clubs with me, at least three of us did PhD degrees on salamanders. The Newark Museum had a major impact on our lives. I majored in both Biology and Chemistry at Newark College of Arts and Sciences (a small, commuter branch of Rutgers University), graduating in 3.5 years in 1955. I did my graduate work at the Rutgers New Brunswick campus, “The Men’s Campus,” although there were other women in the Graduate School program, earning my master’s in 1957 and my PhD in 1959 from the Zoology Department.

I recall with fondness my interview with Richard Van Cleve, dean of the College of Fisheries, arranged by Zoology Professor Richard Snyder, in autumn 1959. I had recently completed my PhD, and Professor Snyder did salamander research at UW. Dean Van Cleve learned of my previous work on Tilapia (an unsuccessful summer student project) and suggested that I interview with Drs. Sparks and Liston, who were involved with a project to grow fish (Tilapia) on human fecal material for feeding future astronauts (funds and fecal matter supplied by Boeing). I was very interested in the concept of closed ecological systems because my research on salamanders had been so open and frustrating, and the concept of the “ecosystem” was then new and exciting. An ecosystem needed to have boundaries and measurable inputs and outputs, exactly what my salamander research lacked. There was interest in biological life support systems for space habitations that would mimic earth’s elemental recycling. Dean Van Cleve warned them that I would never leave if they hired me (and he was right). I started as a part-time fisheries biologist (which didn’t require a college degree). I was paid less than I had been as a graduate teaching assistant at Rutgers, but I was happy to work on this project and to be associated with the UW. This position allowed me to use the UW library, where I had been denied access without a UW affiliation, and the Seattle Library didn’t have the journals I needed to publish my graduate work.

To truly experience what it was like to be a woman professional then, one needs to see the movie “The Notorious RBG” (Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Supreme Court Justice, who received her law degree from Columbia in 1959, the same year I received my PhD). Most professional organizations at that time only hired women to be secretaries, laboratory technicians, or possibly, librarians. Women with advanced degrees were viewed with suspicion! The only woman that I knew on the UW faculty was Dixie Lee Ray (Zoology), and although a fine teacher, she was controversial.

Dr. Melvin Dollar was active on the Boeing project; he became my mentor and taught me to write fundable proposals, and in 1961, he was PI and I was co-PI on a grant on the nutritional quality of algae and its effect on grazer populations. I became a member of the research faculty as an instructor as a result of being a co-PI. Dean Van Cleve allowed me to submit a grant to NASA as a PI even though research faculty members were not allowed to be PIs at that time. Grant and Contract Services, seeing his signature, allowed it to be submitted, and the proposal was funded. I became a research assistant professor in 1962. Dr. Dollar was an important mentor for me, involving me in his research on trout liver tumors and improving my writing and research skills (and I learned that being a PhD didn’t mean I knew it all). After he left, Dr. John Liston became my mentor and supported my eventual promotion to research associate professor in 1966 and to full professor in 1971.

Initially, the Boeing project focused on fish growth, in theory supported by an aquatic food chain of feces (via microbial action to dissolved inorganics) to algae, to Daphnia, to fish, but the fish were smarter and ate the freeze-dried fecal material directly (which looked like commercial pet fish food). Along the way, I was taught to culture algae—because I killed numerous young fish by trying to randomize them for experiments in (unknown to me) toxic plastic medicine cups. This project introduced me to aquatic food chain dynamics. For several years, my research interests were focused on algal chemical composition and its impacts on grazers, both as potential single-cell protein sources and as ecological phytoplankton–grazer interactions. My research grew to developing model ecosystems: open to the atmosphere, but with all organisms known, including the bacteria (gnotobiotic ecosystems). The research then moved from batch to continuous cultures that lent themselves to mathematical models, developed beyond my modelling capabilities by Daniel McKenzie (PhD, 1975). The continuous cultures of algae also were applied to producing shellfish food, via Sea Grant funding. The Western Coniferous Biome of the International Biological Program gave me an opportunity to experience middle management of “big” research and mathematical modelling during 1969–1974, which introduced me to more sophisticated modelling and modellers. I edited a book, Lakes and Reservoirs (1984), part of the series of Ecosystems of the World!

In 1976, I was asked if I could develop synthetic communities of organisms to display the effects of test chemicals, such that the communities could be replicated in different laboratories, and provide similar results. This work led to the “Standardized Aquatic Microcosm,” (ASTM E1366), which has been re-balloted every five years and continues to be active. Along with the development of the biological ecosystems, US EPA funded mathematical models by Gordon Swartzman and his student Kenneth Rose (PhD, 1985).

Subsequent research included developing fish habitats for space research for NASA—the challenge being to keep a group of fish in a small container for 100 days without changing the water. As is often the case, NASA funded two groups to work independently; the other group proved it couldn’t be done (in a clean beaker), and we did it by using a complex aquatic food chain. I spent two summers at NASA’s Ames Research Center studying protozoa, rotifers, and brine shrimp as “instant fish food” for baby fish, given their goal to have three generations of fish born at null gravity and the need of baby zebrafish to have live food after hatching. Our laboratory also tested a “cell culture unit” for NASA using Euglena as the test organism. The purpose of the project was to find all the ways the equipment could fail, and we made it work, so our contract was terminated earlier than those testing other organisms. Ultimately, the project was cancelled, and the private sector has now developed multiple cell culture units.

Although I was a research faculty member, I also had the opportunity to teach: initially in 1961, Zoology 118 Physiology (non-major) at UW’s Continuing Education (night school), when a graduate student who was scheduled to teach it got a fellowship, and later, I taught “Space Biology: Sealed Life Support Systems” (1961–1969), also as part of the Continuing Education program. When I became a member of the teaching faculty, Dean Van Cleve asked me to teach about water pollution (another long story), as well as aquatic food chains, and I was delighted to do so. So, for many years, I taught Aquatic Food Chain Ecology (Fish 459), Community Responses to Toxic Chemicals (Fish 527), and Biological Problems of Water Pollution (Fish/Civil Engineering 430/431) along with a few other courses from time to time.

From 1971 to 1973, I was chair of the UW Affirmative Action Committee. With the help of Dean Doug Chapman, I conducted an Affirmative Action Report in 1973. All 23 fisheries biologists were men; of the other non-academic staff, 50% of the 39 females earned less than or equal to the lowest paid of the 19 males although their qualifications were greater. Of the graduate students, there were 66 males, 50% of whom were supported and 14 females, 14% of whom were supported. At one time, I was on at least 18 school committees (because suddenly every committee needed a woman, and I was the only women faculty member in Fisheries and most academic units had no women faculty). Eventually, I received a letter from Dean Douglas Chapman saying that I only had to serve on committees of my choice—an envy of other faculty members.

When I retired in 2000, I felt I should exercise other options for research besides those that were funded by outside agencies. Since being “theoretically retired,” I have focused on my  closed ecological systems research, developing the methods that allow algae, grazers, and associated undefined microorganisms to maintain active populations for weeks or months, while in some cases, recording O2, pH (and calculated CO2), pressure, etc. every five minutes. I have two research objectives: 1) to better understand the metabolism (O2 and CO2 dynamics) and relate these laboratory findings to natural ecosystems, and 2) to publish on the techniques by which students can use closed ecological systems for self-designed experiments that have a reasonable chance for success. The hardest part is getting students to equate a canning jar incubated with a lights on/off pattern with the Earth’s biosphere, although both have similar element cycles.

I married Jack H. Taub during spring break in 1954, during my junior year—three of my faculty members insisted on interviewing him—faculty took “in loco parentis” very seriously in those days! They worried that they had not seen me dating him at the School’s Friday night dances where they were chaperones. (Jack was a sailor stationed in Boston at the time, so we dated only Saturdays and Sundays.) He was discharged from the Navy in 1955, and we headed for married-student housing at Rutgers. Jack finished his undergraduate degree in mathematics and did some graduate work developing Rutgers’ new computer (IBM 650) while I did my graduate studies. After my PhD degree ceremony in 1959, we headed out for Seattle, where Jack had accepted a position as a systems analyst at Boeing. He later worked for the U.S. Navy doing statistics and quality control at Keyport, Washington, retiring as head of their Math Sciences unit. Our children, Beth 1965, Alex 1968, and Gordon 1971, completed our family. Unfortunately, Jack died in 2016; we had been married 62 years. Currently, I am fortunate to have our 3 children and 3 grandchildren living in Washington State.