Our lab focuses on solving biological problems through data synthesis and mathematical models and work on a variety of research projects, including:

• Assessing the global status and future directions of marine fisheries, testing hypotheses about how fisheries affect marine food webs using stock assessments, catches, and surveys, and detecting factors that influence patterns in fishery development.
• The human side of fisheries, including fishing behavior and fleet dynamics, especially as related to the effect of individual transferable quotas (“catch shares”) on the environment, target fisheries, discards, and quota utilization.
• Research on large whales, especially blue whales, but also minke and humpback whales, which has led to papers estimating abundance, changes in population size over time, maps of occurrence, catch separation, status, sex ratios, and the separation of subspecies.
• Modeling herring including a global meta-analysis of trends, and a focus on Prince William Sound, delving into explanations for their collapse and failure to recover, conducting stock assessments, and estimating the value of information from different surveys.
• Citation analysis: the futility of scientific rebuttals, usage of fishers vs. fishermen, an analysis of the most cited fisheries references of all time, and a website with the most-cited fisheries papers, books and databases of all time,  the most cited papers in each year, and current controversies in fisheries science.
• Additional topics: the effects of ocean acidification on marine seafood; how overlooking opportunistic depletion can lead to extinction in multispecies systems; the reduction in old fish due to fishing; speeding up Bayesian methods in fisheries stock assessment by 50 to 50,000 times using the no-U-turn sampler.

My graduate students and postdocs are currently working on modeling oceanographic factors and herring status in Prince William Sound, modeling how to improve management of California market squid, predicting which species are most likely to be threatened by extinction because of opportunistic exploitation, and (soon) estimating and modeling sex ratios in whale populations.

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Joining the lab

Our group is committed to provide a diverse and welcoming environment. We condemn any sort of discrimination based on race, gender, sexual orientation, cultural identity, physical appearance, or religion. Science can only be advanced when different perspectives are considered and included. 

Expectations for prospective students: The work we do focuses on computer modeling, synthesis, and meta-analysis, and melds ecological theory with mathematics, statistics, and computer programming. Prospective students should therefore have skills in mathematics, statistics, and programming, together with a strong interest in ecology, fisheries, or whales. Science communication is also key, and we focus on how to present your science in writing and verbally, and encourage science communication, e.g. @TrevorABranch on Twitter.

Funding: All graduate students at SAFS (and QERM) are fully funded, usually on fellowships, teaching assistantships, or most commonly research assistantships (RAs). RAs pay a monthly stipend, provide a tuition waiver, and include health insurance, and are paid from a grant. Obtaining funding for your graduate studies is therefore very important, but research grants are highly competitive. Students who are able to secure a fellowship will have much more freedom to focus on their own projects without grant funding requirements. SAFS does offer a few fellowship awards each year to select students, which do not need to be applied for; in addition, incoming students should consider the NSF Graduate Research Fellowships, NOAA Nancy Foster Fellowships, NOAA Margarent A Davidson Graduate Fellowship, the NMFS Sea Grant Joint Fellowship Program, and the Ford Foundation. The QERM program, which involves a rigorous math/stats/applied math set of courses in the first three quarters, also funds students for those three quarters.

Moving forward: If all of this sounds interesting and good to you, please send me an email. My students have written up this helpful email template for prospective graduate students.

The email should include (1) your CV, (2) unofficial transcripts, (3) a couple of paragraphs about your research interests, skills, abilities, and career goals, (4) a short statement about your math, statistics, programming, and biology background, and (5) a recent written example of your work. Tell me a bit about your background, why you are interested in working with us, and what kinds of research interest you. I may have a virtual meeting with you, but don’t have a time to meet with every prospective student. Note that out of fairness to all applications, I do not make any final decisions about extending offers to incoming students until Jan of the year of admission, once I know the status of my research grants and have viewed all relevant applications.

To apply: assuming we have had a stimulating conversation over email, send your application in to SAFS (and/or QERM) by the deadline, mentioning my name as an advisor you are interested in working with. Prospective students will normally (covid-willing) be invited to the prospective student day in late February to meet with advisors in person and explore SAFS, the University of Washington, and the Seattle surroundings.

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Current lab members

Caitlin Allen Akselrud (PhD, SAFS)

Caitlin is working on a multi-species management strategy evaluation for California forage fish fisheries. Part of this involves developing a machine learning model for predicting California market squid (Doryteuthis opalescens) abundance, to better manage this species, which is the most valuable fishery in California. She is also working on methods to improve forecasting in ecology using machine learning models. Caitlin is a research fish biologist conducting stock assessments at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center.

Zoe Rand (PhD, QERM)

Zoe is in the Quantitative Ecological Resource Management (QERM) program, and has a background in Latin American Studies, Fisheries and Wildlife Science, and Marine Mammal Science. Most recently she worked on acoustic monitoring of Southern Resident killer whales in the waters around Washington state. Her PhD research involves analyzing historical data for large whales to estimate movement rates of Antarctic blue whales, impacts of whaling on sex ratios, extracting information from blue whale age data, and an assessment of the status of Antarctic blue whales.

Kristina Randrup (PhD, SAFS)

Kristina is applying her background in environmental science to a variety of research projects on blue whales. She earned a BS from the University of Washington in environmental science and an MS from the University of Wisconsin in spatial analysis. For her PhD she is performing a status assessment of blue whales in the North Pacific, examining the diet of blue whales globally, and compiling all known blue whale strandings. She has previously worked as an intern for the Nature Conservancy and the USFS. Outside of the office, Kristina is a competitive trail and ultra runner.

Matheus de Barros (PhD, SAFS)

Matheus is a quantitative fisheries biologist interested in statistical modelling and simulation applied to natural resource management. He earned a BS in Biological Sciences from the Federal University of Alagoas, Brazil, later moving to the United States to obtain a MS degree in Marine Sciences from the University of South Alabama. His PhD dissertation focuses on improving management procedures for Pacific Herring at Prince William Sound, Alaska.

CL Roberts (PhD, QERM)

CL is a student in the Quantitative Ecology and Resource Management (QERM) program. He earned his BS in wildlife biology from the University of Montana and his MS in statistics from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. His PhD research involves Pacific herring stock assessments in Alaska. CL is also a biometrician at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

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Past lab members

Joshua Zahner (MS, SAFS): simulation tested different harvest control rules for Prince William Sound herring, and reviewed different methods of setting catches for fish species around the world. Currently working at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, in Juneau.

John Trochta (PhD, SAFS): created a new model to incorporate virus antibodies into fisheries stock assessment models for Prince William Sound herring, conducted a meta-analysis of reasons for decline and recovery of global herring populations, and explored factors to explain mortality and recruitment patterns in herring. Awarded the Bonderman Travel Fellowship. Currently a researcher at the Norwegian Institute of Marine Science.

Stephanie Thurner (MS, SAFS): used computer simulations to understand when human exploitation of valuable species can lead to extinction when more than one species is targeted in the same region, and developed a database of marine fisheries biomass surveys. Currently a quantitative fisheries biologist at the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

Peter Kuriyama (PhD, SAFS): simulated biases involved in hook-and-line surveys, and examined the effects of catch share fisheries on fishing behavior on the US west coast. Currently a research mathematical statistician at NOAA, Southwest Fisheries Science Center.

Merrill Rudd (PhD, SAFS): developed new modeling tools to assess the status and trends in data-limited fisheries, and whether unreported catches lead to overfishing. Currently leads scientific consulting company Scaleability LLC, which conducts fisheries assessments around the world.

Cole Monnahan (MS, PhD, QERM): assessed the status of eastern North Pacific blue whales, and implemented new Bayesian algorithms that speed up fisheries stock assessments by a factor of 50 to 50,000. Currently a research mathematical statistician at NOAA, Alaska Fisheries Science Center. 

Melissa Muradian (MS, QERM): created a Bayesian stock assessment for Prince William Sound herring, and assessed the value of different types of information collected to manage that fishery. Currently leads Ecosa Consulting LLC, and environmental consulting company specializing in water quality and trout management, with Henry’s Fork Foundation as a major client.

Beatriz Dos Santos Dias (postdoc): explored environmental and biological reasons for the dramatic shift in herring spawning timing in Prince William Sound. Currently a postdoc at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

David McGowan (postdoc): identified major shifts in both space and time of herring spawning in Prince William Sound from surveys covering nearly 50 years. Currently a research fish biologist at NOAA, Alaska Fisheries Science Center.

Lewis Barnett (postdoc): identified areas with corals and other sensitive habitat, at risk from trawling; and showed that old fish have been greatly reduced by fishing. Currently a research fish biologist at NOAA, Alaska Fisheries Science Center. 

Sean Anderson (postdoc): researched the portfolio effect in fisheries, assessed data-poor fisheries, and estimated the frequency of black swan events in animal populations. Currently a research biologist at Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Pacific Biological Station, Nanaimo. 

Matthew Baker (postdoc): defined ecological regions in the Eastern Bering Sea; currently the Science Director at the North Pacific Research Board.

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Courses

• FISH 458: Applying Ecological Models to Manage and Conserve Natural Resources
• FISH 554: Beautiful Graphics in R
• QSCI 482:  Statistical Inference In Applied Research I: Hypothesis Testing And Estimation For Ecologists And Resource Managers

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Areas of Expertise

• Fisheries stock assessment
• Ecological modeling and statistics
• Marine conservation
• Marine food webs
• Catch share fisheries
• Large cetaceans

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Community Engagement and Awards

Selected service

• Scientific Review Group, USA-Canada Pacific Whiting/Hake International Treaty Organization since 2015
• Invited participant to the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Commission starting in 2000
• Member of four NCEAS working groups
• Peer reviewer for 126 journals including Science and Nature
• Active science communication outreach through @TrevorABranch and @BlueWhaleNews on Twitter, with a combined 23,000 followers and 58 million view impressions since 2015.

Selected awards

• 2013 College of the Environment Outstanding Researcher Award
• 2013 Leopold Leadership Fellow
• 2011 Sustainability Science Award, Ecological Society of America