Greetings from Juneau!

                After a long winter, it appears that summer may finally be upon us up here in Juneau. It did snow during May, but that seems to be the last of it. This makes my 17 mile bicycle commute to school and back considerably easier…

                I just finished my second semester at the School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, through the University of Alaska Fairbanks. I had my first dissertation committee meeting, and all things are “go” for my project (analyzing the socio-economic effects of individual quotas for halibut in Alaska and cod in Poland). That means I will be on my way back to Poland to distribute a questionnaire to commercial fishers in the fall. But before that, I am looking forward to an exciting summer.

                All NSF-IGERT MESAS funding recipients (there are 6 of us this year) are required to do internships during our first summer on the fellowship, and I am lucky enough to have an advisor who recommended a really cool one for me: I will be a sea sampler with the International Pacific Halibut Commission, collecting biological data about Pacific halibut out in the Bering Sea.

                I just had a week of training in Seattle before returning to Juneau to attend the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council meeting (coming up after the weekend). Then it is off to Dutch Harbor until August. In August I will be doing some volunteer work restoring the Cape Decision Lighthouse, on Kuiu Island—I did that last year as well. Finally, our fellowship group will be meeting for our annual retreat in Nome at the end of August. I can’t wait!