Meyer-Kaiser lab

One of the aquarium displays at CCMNH The Cape Cod Museum of Natural History is part aquarium, part historical museum, and part nature preserve. The small wooden building sits back from the street in Brewster, MA, about an hour from Woods Hole. When my colleague, Calvin, suggested it as a venue for a public seminar, I was immediately interested.  Actually, if there was ever an appropriate venue for a presentation on Calvin’s and my collaborative research, CCMNH is it. The museum is a highly interdisciplinary institution with robust education programs and a seminar series run by the Massachusetts Archaeological Society. This small but mighty museum in Brewster is where biology and archaeology meet. My seminar was well-attended - I estimate there were about 30 people in the room, plus a few more on Zoom. The museum staff were great to work with and managed the technical intricacies of a hybrid presentation well. Over the course of an hour, I shared results of my group’s research in Stell

It's always a good morning when I open my inbox to find a paper has been published. It feels like I've accomplished something before even starting my day.  The paper that has me smiling today is actually a chapter in a book. My maritime archaeologist collaborator, Calvin, came out of our Stellwagen Telepresence Project in 2019-2020 with a mission to address management of shipwrecks in the sanctuary. As you might remember, we spent two summers on a small boat in Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, collecting ROV video footage from historically important shipwrecks. One of the biggest results from the whole project was that the primary threat to Stellwagen shipwrecks is entanglement of fishing nets .  Fishing nets don't just get entangled on shipwrecks; they damage them in the process. Our research revealed that the stern of the famous steamship Portland had been ripped off by a fishing net sometime between 2009 and 2019. Plus, fishing nets alter the biological co

Hollis at the mentorship luncheon I slipped out of staff meeting with a quick apology to the Department chair, threw on my backpack, and marched out of the building. No time to waste - I had somewhere to be. There was a 15-year-old kid on the Vineyard expecting to have lunch with me.  For the past several months, I've been mentoring a high school student named Hollis. He came to us through the mentorship program at his school, the Martha's Vineyard Public Charter School. Hollis is the youngest intern I've ever taken, but he's become a valuable member of the team. He's extremely good at picking out and identifying marine larvae. Every Wednesday when he steps off the ferry, we catch up about life for a little bit and then settle in at the microscopes. Using glass pipets, we sort baby clams, snails, and sea urchins from the mass of copepods in each sample. I sit right next to Hollis at the microscope while we work and have wide-ranging conversations about everything