After graduating from Western Washington University with a degree in Environmental Science, I served as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in the Coastal Resource Management Program in the Philippines. We worked on ecotourism projects to relieve fishing pressure and created programs in giant clam restocking, coral propagation, and mangrove restoration. I gained a deep appreciation for sustainable aquaculture while abroad and began working at the Taylor Shellfish hatchery in Quilcene, WA shortly after returning. Over the past few years, I have been helping manage an ocean acidification monitoring unit on the NANOOS network and researching ways to improve hatchery production through nutrition experiments, water treatments, and husbandry techniques. We are collaborating with the Roberts Lab to better understand mass mortality events that occur at our hatchery using proteomic tools. We have identified key bottlenecks in production and we hope to learn more about physiological responses in shellfish so we can be better prepared and adapt in an era of climate change and other environmental perturbations.
Rhonda Elliott
Graduate Student in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences and Research Technician for Taylor Shellfish