My first forays into ecology took place amid white pine and red maple in the forests of eastern Massachusetts, where I studied the abundance and distribution of red back salamanders, American toads and garter snakes.  I was three years old, so the work was not well documented, but I like to think of it as early research. Growing up I spent most of my time outside, and most of my indoor time reading about nature.  My walls were covered with posters of fish, crustaceans and other aquatic life which I pondered as I lay in bed at night.  I was actually brought home by the local police at age five when I and a friend wandered away through the woods to look for turtles.  If you’ve ever felt that need to seek out and observe such a creature, you will understand that it was a necessary excursion.

I think I was in seventh grade before I actually got to take a course in life science.  So when I finished high school I chose a college strong in biological sciences and field study.  I attended the College of the Atlantic in Maine for two years where I studied fish biology.  In the summers I worked out on a tiny island twenty miles into the Gulf of Maine assisting with whale research.  After two years at COA I decided to transfer to the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, to finish my undergraduate degree.  But during the transfer process, I decided to take a semester off, during which I saved up some money and sailed around the Bahamas on a 27’ sailboat with a friend of mine.  When I arrived at UMASS I was well travelled, energized and thirsty for knowledge.  Two years later I graduated with my BS in Wildlife and Fisheries Conservation.  I spent that summer and fall working as a field technician on a Blanding’s turtle home range study and then went back to UMASS to begin my master’s research with Dr. Francis Juanes.  I spent the next two and a half years in class, at sea and in the lab delving deep into the world of fish reproduction.  In March of 2006 I handed in my thesis documenting my research on the fecundity of Atlantic cod on Georges Bank and in the Gulf of Maine.  I left campus that day with a van full of the essential gear and headed west to begin working in Yellowstone National Park.  From spring thaw to the first snows of autumn I mended gill nets and fished the waters of Yellowstone Lake working with a crew to remove invasive lake trout from waters which they poorly share with native species.

Exploring the wilds of the rocky mountain parks and visiting every natural place I could on my way to the Pacific and then back to the Atlantic, I often felt torn.  From the blue rivers of Glacier, to the lava tubes of Idaho, to the lush canyons of Zion, each park was more amazing than the one before it, and I imagined myself travelling carefree, forever.  But while passing a field of loosestrife or driving across the Glen Canyon Dam I would be reminded of the realities of human ecology, and my role in that world.  So after a number of national traverses and a couple hops across the pond, I took a position in Woods Hole, Massachusetts working for the NOAA Fisheries survey to gain some more experience at sea, and posture for my next career move.