Our very own Professor Daniel Schindler was elected to the 2026 class of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in recognition of his groundbreaking research on climate change, freshwater ecosystems and fisheries. Professor Schindler’s work has helped advance understanding of salmon habitats, watershed health and ecosystem resilience across Alaska and the Pacific Northwest.

In a new study, University of Washington scientists eavesdropped on Cook Inlet belugas, recording more than 1,700 calls representing 21 different behavioral encounters. This work builds on a 2023 study showing that noise from commercial shipping, the primary industry in the region, masks common beluga calls. Although many marine mammals rely more on sound than sight, our understanding of acoustic communication among these animals is limited. 

SAFS undergraduate Callie Murakami and others are featured in this month’s Viewpoint Magazine. The cover article, written by Hennelor Sudermann, details how SAFS and other UW undergraduates are learning through community engaged partnerships.  Sudermann writes: “the classroom doesn’t end at the edge of campus. For students across disciplines, it extends into communities, ecosystems and partnerships across the state—places where knowledge is applied, tested and shared, and where education becomes a way to contribute to something larger.” 

The UW Aquatic Sciences Open House is back on Saturday 16 May, offering a free and family-friendly day of hands-on learning to celebrate science and research that relates to water. Visitors can step on board a research boat used for local science, and experience real working science labs here at the university. We also have hands-on activities led by current UW students, staff, postdocs, and faculty across the College of the Environment and by organizations from the greater Seattle area.

Returning on Tuesday, March 31st at 1.30pm, join your fellow SAFS community for hot drinks, tasty treats, and conversation each week during the Spring Quarter.
Are you a student? Staff member? Faculty? Researcher? Take a break from your day and get to know others working at SAFS. All are welcome!
Tuesdays at 1.30pm in the second floor kitchen area near the patio. 

Most rivers in the United States flow with little real protection, even though they supply drinking water, support wildlife, and shape our landscapes. New research co-led by Julian Olden finds that nearly two-thirds of U.S. rivers lack safeguards for water quality, habitat, and biodiversity. The findings show how much of the nation’s river network remains exposed and how much work still lies ahead.

During the summer of 2025, members of the Wood Lab travelled to Albuquerque, New Mexico to work with Drs.Tom Turner and Sara Brant from University of New Mexico Museum of Southwestern Biology to quantify the change in parasite abundance and diversity in the Rio Grande over the past 72 years, a period stretching from 1938 to 2010.

Long baleen whale mothers are more likely to have female calves than males, according to a new study led by the University of Washington. The findings, published by UW QERM student Zoe Rand and Professors Trevor Branch and Sarah Converse, contradict a popular evolutionary theory postulating that strong mammals benefit more from birthing males.

We welcome Andrea Burton to Marine Biology and the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences (SAFS), our newest faculty member. Andrea starts this month as an Assistant Teaching Professor. As a specialist in climate change biology, using molecular and ecological approaches to examine adaptive response to changing conditions, Andrea joins us from UCLA where she was a lecturer.

For almost a decade, the Washington Sea Grant Crab Team has been surveilling the advance of the invasive European green crab. In 2015, the team was formed to engage citizen scientists in a search for the first signs of an invasion into Puget Sound, with the first documented trap of a green crab taking place a year later in August 2016. They have now been found in more than 30 trapping sites. A new story in Salish Sea Currents features tracking efforts tracking efforts and research into the invasive crab.