GRADUATE STUDENT RESEARCH AWARDS
Written by Former GSRA Recipients: Where are they now?
Leah Zacher (previously Sloan)
Casey Clark
Biography From the hairy legs of tiny larvae to the ominous zombie crabs, I enjoy studying the strange and the obscure. Last spring, I completed my PhD in Marine Biology at University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), studying Alaskan king crab. My work explored the biology of a parasitic barnacle that castrates king crabs, plus I documented how red king crab distributions have shifted with tempera- ture changes in the Bering Sea. Before coming to Alaska, I attended California State University Long Beach, earning a Bachelor’s degree in Biology, and then Humboldt State University, where I tracked the movement patterns of turtles for my Master’s degree. I am a generalist by nature, thus
I received the NPRB Graduate Student Research Award (GSRA) in 2015, at the beginning of my doctoral work at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where I studied the impacts of climate change on Pacific walruses. Before moving to Alaska to pursue my PhD, I received a BSc from the University of California Santa Cruz and an MSc from Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, in Moss Landing, California, where I studied feeding, migration, and pregnancy rates in humpback whales. Born and raised in Bellingham, Washington, my interest in ecology and passion for research stemmed from a youth spent in the outdoors and on the waters of the Pacific Northwest.
my research interests vary across aquatic and terrestrial systems, but typically revolve around questions in ecology, conservation biology, and ecosystem sustainability. I recently began working for the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) as a research crab biologist, where I continue to study crab biology in the Bering Sea, with the goal of promoting sustainable management of crab fisheries. GSRA Impact & Current Activities The NPRB Graduate Student Research Award (GSRA) provided me with essential resources needed for my dissertation research, especially for running metabolomic analyses on king crab tissues. Metabolomics is a newly emerging technology, which I used on king crabs to explore variability in small molecules, like hormones, under different conditions. Without the GSRA, I would not have been able to pursue this cutting-edge research nor would I have gained the associated critical skills in “omics” research, bioinformatics, and mapping. Since graduating from UAF, I have further pursued collaborative research with Alaska Department of Fish and Game in a project (started during my dissertation) to understand Bristol Bay red king crab distribution patterns in winter, using fishery log books. In my current research with NMFS, I use skills obtained as part of my GSRA to understand king crab seasonal and annual movement with environmental conditions, like temperature.
Since receiving the NPRB GSRA, I have completed my doctoral research and will be receiving my degree in Spring 2019. While at UAF, I had many opportunities to share my GSRA research with people in Alaska, in the United States, and around the world. Most importantly, the GSRA allowed me to travel to the communities of Gambell and Savoonga on St. Lawrence Island, Alaska, to participate in meetings with Alaska Native walrus hunters. I was also able to travel to Utqiaġvik (formerly Barrow), Alaska, to work with the North Slope Borough Department of Wildlife Management, and to present NPRB GSRA research to the community. I recently defended my dissertation in October 2018. As far as next steps, I hope to pursue a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Washington, where I would develop methods for monitoring the status of Arctic mammal populations using trace element concentrations in teeth.
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