Professor Chris Anderson was featured on NPR’s Planet Money podcast – a show that aims to take complex economic issues and make them approachable for all audiences. On the show, Chris answers a listener’s question on the environmental footprint of shipping tuna across the ocean.
Listen to the podcast 

When Jeff Cordell was around nine years old, he decided that he wanted to be a marine biologist. Growing up near Puget Sound, he spent many summer and weekend days at the beach and in the water, collecting and identifying all kinds of invertebrates. Later, as an undergraduate at Huxley College of Environmental Studies, Jeff worked in a lab, sorting and identifying biota from Puget Sound beaches; he also spent three summers working in the Arctic, collecting invertebrates before oil drilling commenced there.

Up until last March, the classrooms, labs, offices, and even the hallways and lobbies of the Fishery Sciences and Fisheries Teaching and Research buildings were bustling with the regular activities of a vibrant academic unit. During this past year, however, our daily routines have changed dramatically; our days now consist of Zoom calls and juggling an increasingly stressful workp-life balance at home. Amidst all of these changes, building coordinator Jon Wittouck’s role has become even more vital. Jon, along with co-worker Jason Ching, is still coming to campus nearly every day, working behind the scenes to ensure that the SAFS facilities are safely maintained and operations are running smoothly for critical employees.

Capstone research projects provide an exciting opportunity for students to put classroom learning into practice—and sometimes even publish their work. These senior projects are the culmination of the undergraduate experience here at SAFS.
Emily McFarland (BS 2020) published her capstone, “A new species of Chromis damselfish from the tropical western Atlantic (Teleostei, Pomacentridae),” this past December. The new species—Chromis vanbebberae —was revealed through phylogenetic analyses to be distinct from Chromis enchrysurus, commonly known as the Yellowtail Reeffish. 

Each year, our students, faculty, and staff win regional, national, and international awards. Please join us in congratulating this year’s group of award winners!

Thanks to 20 years of observations from thousands of citizen scientists, University of Washington researchers have discovered distinct patterns in the mass strandings of by-the-wind sailor jellies. Specifically, large strandings happened simultaneously from the northwest tip of Washington south to the Mendocino coast in California, and in years when winters were warmer than usual.

In the midst of a pandemic, civil unrest after a democratic election, and their interconnections to our work, education, and relationships at SAFS, many in the SAFS community are pondering our roles in advancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ). These are immensely challenging tasks, which for some may invoke a state of paralysis or exhaustion, and for others a call to action. The SAFS Equity & Inclusion (EI) Committee, which has recently been raised to the status of an official school committee, strives to play a part in making SAFS a welcoming place, where people work together as a diverse and inclusive community.

As I look out of my office window, I see the first snow of 2021—a reminder to me that even with everything that is going on, there is still some normality. Enhancing SAFS through increased diversity is an ongoing priority—the importance of which has been underscored by events this past year. In this issue, learn about some of our efforts and activities to advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice in SAFS. I also encourage you to view the seminars from this year’s Bevan Series, which are focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Three SAFS researchers have become principal investigators on two of the School’s long-term projects. Although new to their positions, they are not new to SAFS. Rebecca Buchanan and Jennifer Gosselin are the recently appointed PIs at Columbia Basin Research (CBR). Both came to CBR after earning doctoral degrees (Rebecca 2005; Jennifer 2015) and completing postdoctoral research. Jason Toft works on the Wetland Ecosystem Team (WET), where he has been a research scientist since obtaining his MS degree at SAFS in 2000.

SAFS thanks the Miller family and the many faculty, students, and staff for their contributions to this memoriam. Some content was adapted from the obituary written by Craig and Catherine Miller and published in The Seattle Times on November 8, 2020.
On 31 October 2020, Bruce Stuart Miller, SAFS professor emeritus, passed away at the age of 84.
Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, Bruce was raised in Iowa City, Iowa, with his three brothers.