This academic semester news update is looking different from the others, and I’m sure I don’t need to explain why. With classes transitioned online and visits to the URI campus limited due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Humphries Lab has embraced our already fairly remote working style and joined much of the country in lockdown in our homes. We are lucky to have ample practice in work-from-home and virtual correspondence given our dispersed and sometimes remote fieldwork locations and work habits. Many of us also normally split time between Providence and URI’s campus.
Not being able to see each other’s faces off-screen is wearing on us though. Like the rest of the world, we’re trying to learn how to foster our same group collaborative vibrations through tech rather than touch. But, more than anything, we are grateful for our health at this moment and for the privilege that we enjoy that allows us to be able to continue to work relatively unimpeded and be paid during this crisis. Our hearts are with those on the frontlines of this crisis, and those suffering from all the interruptions that come along with it. We send you all our most heartfelt virtual group hug.
Read on to hear what everyone has been doing during this uncertain time and see how we’ve each fashioned our work-from-home hubs!
Annie is working on drafting a couple different manuscripts, one that aims to publish the Ecopath model of the Narragansett Bay social-ecological system that she’s helped build, and one that she is working on with fellow URI grad student Maggie Heinichen on a sea robin diet study completed this past summer. Annie is currently repping a no-nonsense double-laptop setup in isolation in Boston, MA: one PC for Ecopath and one Mac for NetLogo. Doesn’t seem very streamlined, but the work output that she has produced while under quarantine would suggest otherwise!
Austin has been spending up to 7 hours per day on Zoom and Skype calls, acting as the glue that’s holding our whole lab ship together. As per usual, the list of what Austin is working on is too long to include in a blog post, but the biggest chunk of his time recently has been dedicated to finishing and sending off a small mountain of manuscript drafts and project reports. Below is Austin’s minimalist home office at his temporary California base in Marin County. He feels lucky to not have been stranded while traveling on some far away island and is looking forward to when he can return to Rhode Island.
Catie is working on getting a manuscript draft on reef change in Belize out to her co-authors. She’s also generating results figures from before (2014) and after (2019) perceptions from Belizean fishers of reef management policies, and holding lots of virtual meetings with coworkers and various research organizations. Below is Catie’s photo representation of work-from-home expectations vs. reality, which speaks to all of us at the moment.
Celeste has been spending lots of time in MATLAB working on generating figures from a hydrodynamic biogeochemical model of Narragansett Bay aquaculture sites for a NOAA report. Celeste is in quarantine mode with boyfriend Carl and with fellow labmate and roommate Lauren who all together have formed a single germ unit and group cooking commune. Celeste is thankful for an apartment with ample natural light.
Elaine is busy absolutely crushing the research award game, having received both The Nature Conservancy’s Global Marine Initiative Student Research Award and the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship in the past two weeks. This means planning an additional field season in Indonesia to explore biogeography with environmental DNA (eDNA). She is also taking a course on fish population dynamics, TA-ing for a large Conservation Biology class, and wrapping up requirements for qualifying exams after addressing proposal edits from her advisors and committee members.
Elle is transitioning to teaching online, which involves numerous TA meetings as they change the syllabus and grading rubric (from centering on in-person lab activities over to worksheets) and also assigning undergraduate TAs new responsibilities within the online-based system. Elle is also working on writing up the Discussion of the 2nd manuscript from her dissertation characterizing the Indonesian deepwater snapper-grouper fishery and where would be the most optimal places to have a Marine Protected Area for this fishery. Below is Elle, trying her best.
Lauren is working with collaborators to analyze fisheries and economic data for a funding agency report on the initial monitoring period of the SecureFish project in Kenya. This is focused on fisheries management and nutrition security along the Kenyan coast. The data illustrates the value chain of Kenyan coral reef and octopus fisheries. Below is Lauren’s current work-from-home space, equipped with its usual (at least one) cat companion.
Nicky recently submitted materials for a research permit that we are holding out hope to be executed late this summer during a trip to Pulau Bontosua in Indonesia. She is now in the final stages of drafting her MS thesis proposal (entitled “Determinants of subjective well-being for women in Indonesian small-scale fishing (SSF) communities”), and working on data cleaning and analysis for the coral reef fisheries value chain project conducted on Bontosua last year. Below is a totally unstaged photo of Nicky in her new home office featuring a standing desk constructed from a wine crate and what Nicky refers to as her quarantine fleece.
Since the quarantine took hold, Paul has submitted the first chapter of his dissertation for peer-review, which focused on size spectra of coral reef fishes in Indonesia. Please be kind reviewers! Paul is currently working on doing the same for his second chapter focused on fishing gear selectivity and developing an index using both catch data and underwater visual census data. This manuscript should actually be submitted for peer-review in the coming week. Silver linings, he certainly has all the quiet he needs to focus on writing. Below is a picture of Paul’s home battle station which we believe to be the nicest Executive Suite office of anyone in the group!
Yash is working on his capstone project for his MBA, which involves working with a client to analyze the internal and external communication processes for their business, and suggesting ways to improve it and develop philanthropic campaigns. On the Humphries Lab side of things, Yash is finishing up gathering economic data from literature review for the integrated kelp aquaculture project. He’s transitioning next to aiding Nicky in cleaning and organizing Indonesian fisheries value chain data. Below is Yash’s at-home setup, which he recently moved to be closer to the window for obvious reasons.
Lastly, we’re excited to “officially” announce the addition of Ivy Blackmore to the lab! Ivy is based in St. Louis, MO and is a joint postdoc between URI and Washington University in St. Louis working on the intervention component of a new project in Kenya on the effectiveness of fishing co-operatives and social messaging for healthy nutrition and ecosystems — this is an extension to the Kenya SecureFish project and will have it’s own project page soon! We are thrilled to have Ivy onboard and look forward to the first safe opportunity to get her out to Rhode Island to meet everyone. Below is a picture of Ivy during her PhD where she was conducting a formative assessment of the vulnerability context of three indigenous subsistence farming communities in Guangaje, Ecuador.
