Given that it is already week 10 of spring semester, this announcement is long overdue.

Thrilled to welcome new PhD students Megan Winton and Robert Wildermuth, along with MS student Liberty Schilpp, to the lab.

Megan joins us from the Coonamessett Farm Foundation in Falmouth MA. She received her MS at CSUMB’s Moss Landing Marine laboratory, where she worked with David Ebert and Greg Cailliet on modeling age, growth and demography of Bering Sea skates. Megan has also worked for NOAA Fisheries in Woods Hole, with work modeling spatial variation in maturity of winter flounder. Her UMassD dissertation research will focus on developing and testing methods for including different types of tagging information into models used to assess and manage fisheries and protected species.

Robert joins us from Western Ecosystems Inc. where he was analyzing demographic data for marine resource damage assessment following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. He received his MS from Arizona State University working in Leah Gerber’s lab on behavioral indicator assessments for marine mammals. Robert’s research at UMassD will focus on comparing among qualitative and quantitative models for evaluating tradeoffs for ecosystem-based management in the Northeast US marine ecosystem.

Liberty is transferring from the Hyun lab here at SMAST. She is collaborating with Dr. Hyun and Dr. Tim Miller at NOAA Fisheries in Woods Hole, conducting empirical analysis and state-space modeling of temporal changes in biological parameters for commercial and non-target fish species in the Northeast US.

All three have been hard at work with classes this semester, but we have also had time for some productive workshop-style lab meetings. It’s exciting to be part of a growing group!