The 2016 Stanford Team

Last year Fio Micheli was schedule to lead our team on Palmyra Atoll. When the trip fell through and we had to postpone our trip a year, Fio was not able to work the new dates into her busy schedule. I am bummed as I was looking forward to spending time with her in the field and letting her assume the role of lead scientist. That said, I have a very experienced pair of graduate students that will accompany me when we leave a little over a month from now.

Ana Guerra has been to Palmyra several times. As a Stanford undergraduate she travelled to the atoll to help with a Hopkins graduate student's project before obtaining her own funding to return to Palmyra and conduct her own project studying the vulnerable bristle-thighed curlew.

bristle-thighed curlew on Palmyra Atoll
Numenius tahitiensis

During my 2014 stint on Palmyra Ana was there too, working on a project tagging manta rays. After that she spent a year diving around the world as the 2014 North American Rolex Scholar which included a two week stint serving as the acting refuge manager on Palmyra. Read more about Ana's adventurous life on her web page:

http://www.anasofiaguerra.com/#!about-me/zl55c

This fall Ana will start as a graduate student in Doug McCauley's lab at UC Santa Barbara. For those of you who have been following this blog, you might remember that Doug is one of the PIs on this project and was the lead scientist during my first field season on Palmyra in 2013.

The second member of the team is Tim White. Tim is a graduate student in the De Leo & Micheli labs at Hopkins Marine Station and another avid diver with experience working on Palmyra Atoll. But what impressed me most was when I heard him talk about the time he spend on Teraina also known at Washington Island. A barge dropped him off on this tiny atoll where there were only few people who spoke a bit of English. There was no communication to the outside world, and Tim just had to hope the barge returned in three months. He was there to study shark-finning practices. If you want to read more about this fascinating story, check out an interview he did at:

http://protecttheoceans.org/wordpress/?p=1598

Tim White building his own shelter on Washington Island

Tim is hoping to do some of his Ph.D. research on Palmyra and is off to a good start with some preliminary funding to study coconut crabs on Palmyra while we are out there this summer.