Blog

Celebrating Recent Awards and Scholarships in the VEL Lab

Sarah Elizabeth Perryman

Aleah Corbo

Aleah has received the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories' WAVE Scholarship and the Myers Award from the Dr. Earl H. Myers and Ethel M. Myers Trust. These awards will help support her work investigating the seasonal variation of southern sea otter (Enhydra lutris nereis) raft size, distribution, and abundance in Elkhorn Slough.

   

 

Jessica Hughes

Jess has received the Myers Award from the Dr. Earl H. Myers and Ethel M. Myers Trust and the First Generation Moss Landing Marine Laboratories Scholarship. These awards will help support her work assessing the long-term decadal and short-term seasonal variation in Pacific harbor seal (Phoca vitulina richardii) diet in Elkhorn Slough, Monterey County.

   

Sarah Perryman

Sarah has received the Izzy Szczepaniak Cetacean Research Grant from the American Cetacean Society - San Francisco Bay Chapter, the JEDI Scholarship from Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, the Kenneth Coale Graduate Scholar Award from the California State University Council on Ocean Affairs, Science & Technology, and the John E. Heyning Research Award from the American Cetacean Society - Los Angeles Chapter. These awards will help support her work investigating the seasonal variation in Risso’s dolphin (Grampus griseus) diet and foraging ecology in Monterey Bay using stable isotope analysis.

         

 

 

Congratulations on candidacy!

Sarah Elizabeth Perryman

Congratulations to VEL student Sarah Perryman for advancing to candidacy!

Sarah’s thesis investigates the foraging ecology of Risso’s dolphins (Grampus griseus) in the California Current. She uses stable isotope analysis of biopsy samples to characterize variation in diet across seasons and sexes. By linking dolphin isotope values to regional prey and seasonal context, she aims to understand how foraging patterns shift in response to ecosystem variability. This work will provide new insight into the ecological role of Risso’s dolphins and contribute to broader efforts to monitor and manage dynamic marine systems in the California Current.

 

 

Three new interns are joining the VEL for the summer!

Taylor Azizeh

We are so excited to welcome our three interns for the summer!

 

 

Roxane is an undergraduate student pursing a degree in Marine Sciences at San Francisco State University. She is from a small town in San Diego, where she discovered her passion for marine life. She grew up on a beach where sewage runoff affects marine life and public safety, and she hopes to work in her hometown to reduce and eliminate pollution. Roxane is currently with the 2024 Monterey Bay Ocean Sciences REU Program, working with Dr. Birgitte McDonald for the summer in the Vertebrate Ecology Lab. This summer, she will be researching Emperor Penguin dive behaviors in the Ross Sea.

 

 

Aidann is an undergraduate student, studying Marine Science at California State University, Monterey Bay. She previously attended UC Berkeley as an undergraduate Chemistry B.S major, but later transferred to the Marine Science program at CSUMB to further her education in marine biology and chemical oceanography. She is interested in deep-sea research and the impact of climate change on the marine environment. She started volunteering as an intern for the Vertebrate Ecology Lab in Spring 2024, and currently help with marine mammal stranding response, assisting with necropsies, and participating in monthly beach surveys. She is also currently working with ArcGIS Pro to create a detailed map of all strandings in Monterey County.

 

 

Mia is a current fourth year undergraduate student at Gonzaga University, pursuing her B.A. in Biology and a minor in Applied Mathematics. Her interests lie in the intersection of math and science, particularly in understanding the impact of climate change on our environment and using mathematical models to study these changes. She is excited to be part of the Vertebrate Ecology Lab this summer as an intern and part of the Monterey Bay Stranding Network team. Her responsibilities include assisting with the marine mammal response, participating in necropsies, and completing monthly beach surveys. She is also working with a graduate student on research on elephant seals and their diving behavior.

Welcome to the new VEL post-doc, Martin Tournier!

Taylor Azizeh

The Vertebrate Ecology Lab is excited to welcome our new post-doctoral researcher, Martin Tournier. Martin will be working on an NSF-funded project investigating the physiological and behavioral ecology of emperor penguin.

Martin comes from France, where he completed two MS degrees in Oceanography and Marine Ecology, and Ecological Modelling. He got his Ph.D. from La Rochelle Université where his work focused on characterizing the habitat of deep-diving mammals. He worked with active acoustic data obtained from dataloggers that were deployed on southern elephant seals. He developed novel mathematical approaches to model the three-dimensional habitat of elephant seals.

While interested in many aspects of marine ecology, his primary research interest is to investigate the different diving and foraging strategies displayed by marine predators, both within and among species, with the goal of determining how environmental forcing will influence behavior on short and long-term scales. This knowledge will provide insights into how their 3-dimensional habitats are changing and how predators may respond to these changes. He is thrilled to address some of these questions with Emperor Penguins in the Vertebrate Ecology Lab. As a student, he helped to organize conferences, and he hopes to organize some short technical workshops during his time here. Outside of the lab, he enjoys spending time sailing, diving, cooking & baking, and hiking.

You can read more about Martin here.

Congrats on advancing to candidacy!

Kali Prescott

Congratulations to VEL student Taylor Azizeh for advancing to candidacy!

Taylor's thesis will focus on investigating the foraging ecology of late chick-rearing emperor penguins (Aptenodytes forsteri) off Cape Crozier, West Antarctica. Specifically, Taylor will use machine learning to identify potential foraging events from biologging data. By combining foraging attempt and dive data, Taylor can estimate what potential costs and benefits of different foraging strategies might be. Ultimately, Taylor hopes that her work will offer novel information to the seabird ecology world, and that eventually, this work can be used in management strategies to better protect ice-obligate species like penguins.

 

 

Welcome to the VEL!

Taylor Azizeh

Welcome to the Vertebrate Ecology Lab, Sebastian and Vicky!

Sebastian Caamaño graduated from UC Santa Cruz with a B.S. in Marine Biology. He also worked with the Pinniped Cognition and Sensory System's Lab where he got to experience working with marine mammals for the first time. Working as an intern, he got to contribute to the daily care and training of the resident seal and sea lion species. Simultaneously, he assisted in several of research projects. These opportunities ranged from hearing tests with a California Sea Lions to physiological work with two arctic seals and even developing some human trials along the way. This volunteership, led him to the Alaska SeaLife Center where he continued his behavior and physiology work with arctic seals as a Research and Animal Care Technician. Ultimately, these experiences led him to the Vertebrate Ecology Lab here in Moss Landing. Since joining, he has enjoyed working for the Marine Mammal Stranding Network and hope to continue working on the physiology of marine mammals.

Vicky Ooi completed her bachelor's degree in Marine Science and Zoology from the University of Queensland, Australia. She then entered an honors research year investigating dugongs along the coast of Southeast Queensland with Drs. Janet Lanyon and Lee McMichael. During this period, I successfully pioneered a fecal DNA extraction protocol that allowed amplification of both mitochondrial and nuclear DNA from free floating dugong feces. This development enabled single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) to be amplified from dugong scats, representing a breakthrough for non-invasive population genetic studies in this species.

She relocated to the United States around mid-late 2022, completing an internship program at Hubbs SeaWorld Research Institute (Species Preservation Lab) with Karen Steinman, further acquiring laboratory skills on semen quality assessments, cryopreservation, enzyme immunoassays, and hormone analyses. Her thesis will focus on the foraging ecology of emperor penguins in Antarctica, simultaneously working part-time as a naturalist on the Sea Goddess whale-watching cruise.