Congratulations to this year’s scholarship winners: Ty Stephenson and Brianna Decora!
Dave Lamb Memorial Scholarship Winner ($1000)
Ty Stephenson, Master’s student, Western Washington University
Spatial and temporal trends in macroinvertebrate communities and water quality in aquatic ecosystems of the North Cascades, Mount Rainier, and Olympic National Park.
In partnership with the National Park Service, Ty is studying benthic macroinvertebrate mountain lake community dynamics in Mount Rainier and North Cascades National Parks. Over the past century, many of these lakes have been stocked with fishes that never inhabited them historically. In addition, a warming climate is changing their patterns of ice cover and thermal regimes. Ty has the unique opportunity to use data from the past fifteen years, collected annually by park biologists, to study how the benthic macroinvertebrate community responds to different fish management practices and changes in climatic patterns. Studying relatively undisturbed environments allows us to better understand baseline conditions and ecosystem responses to stressors—insights that are critical for interpreting changes in more disturbed systems in Washington and beyond.
WALPA Graduate Scholarship ($500)
Brianna Decora, Master’s student, University of Idaho
The development of a rapid assessment methodology for zooplankton assemblages in Idaho
The overall goal of Brianna’s research is to develop a rapid assessment technique for monitoring zooplankton assemblages in Idaho. Traditional zooplankton methods require extensive labor and expertise, limiting their practicality for routine monitoring. Brianna’s research uses size-fractionated settling volumes to track abundance and food availability, enabling responsive fisheries management with informed stocking and harvest decisions.
Brianna holds a bachelor’s degree in fishery resources with a minor in aquaculture from the University of Idaho. Brianna is currently an MS student with Dr. Michael Quist at the Idaho Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit (University of Idaho).
We look forward to hearing more about both students’ research efforts at WALPA’s annual conference coming up October 8-10 in Moses Lake.
