Aquatic Conservation Scientist
There are so many things to love about fieldwork. As scientists, it's an opportunity to finally get our hands dirty (so to speak) and interact with the systems we're studying. It's also invaluable to get to know the communities and people who live in the places we work (scientists commonly treat people as separate from … Continue reading Corals are smelly and other anecdotes from the field
I'm taking a quick break from posting updates about fieldwork in Kiribati to announce that a study I co-authored has been published! Some colleagues and I attended the 2017 Canadian Geophysicists Union meeting in Vancouver with the goal of examining diversity through observations of participation, presentation content, and behaviour in conference sessions. We found that women … Continue reading Diversity in geoscience: Participation, behaviour, and the scientific division of labour at a Canadian geoscience conference
It was exciting to finally step foot in Tarawa, the capital of the Republic of Kiribati, after hearing about it for so long -- my advisor has worked here for a decade or so, and I've spent my last three years as his student hearing about his work and its accompanying adventures. I've also spoken … Continue reading Getting to know Tarawa
In just over a month, I'll be boarding a plane and heading to Tarawa, an atoll in the Gilbert Islands of Kiribati. I'll be staying in Tarawa and the nearby Abaiang Atoll for about a month to conduct the first stage of my Ph.D. fieldwork. It's been a long, dark, rainy winter in Vancouver and … Continue reading Counting down to fieldwork in the Gilbert Islands
With the April 22 March for Science in Washington, DC quickly approaching and the current anti-scientific stance of the American government, the scientific community is abuzz with debate over what role scientists should play in activism. In the midst of these contentious times comes a new paper published in the journal Environmental Communication from George … Continue reading Recent study of scientists and advocacy overlooks gender and racial biases
Recently, I was invited to be a part of last weekend's episode of the CBC radio show, Quirks and Quarks. The episode explored the ways that scientists spent their summers. It was my first recorded interview, and I was thrilled to be asked to participate. I was also extremely nervous. Fortunately both the producer, Mark Crawley, and the … Continue reading Interview: Scientific research and beauty mix on the Marshall Islands
In Marshallese, iokwe means hello, goodbye, and I love you. Translated literally, it means "you are a rainbow." It's not a word that's reserved for family members or even for friends; if you walk down the street in Majuro, strangers who pass you greet you with iokwe. It is, in my opinion, a beautiful way to tell people … Continue reading Bar loe kom (see you later), Marshall Islands!
This is the second of a two-part series about my time in Ebon Atoll. The first post can be found here. Ebon Atoll is known for two things: its beauty and its mosquitos (which are gigantic and plentiful). The main island, Ebon Ebon, is long and narrow. In many places, the ocean is separated from the … Continue reading A glimpse of Ebon (Ebon Atoll part 2 of 2)
This is the first of a two-part series about my time in Ebon Atoll. The second part can be accessed here. Last Thursday, I hopped in a terrifyingly tiny airplane and joined staff from the Marshall Islands Marine Resource Authority (MIMRA) on a visit to Ebon, the most southern atoll in the Marshall Islands. We were … Continue reading Hard at work in paradise (Ebon Atoll, part 1 of 2)
This week, I started my internship with the Marshall Islands Marine Resources Agency (MIMRA), rented a bike for the summer, and generally got settled into a day-to-day routine. Everyone here has been fantastic, and I've made some wonderful friends who have gone out of their way to make sure I feel at home, both inside … Continue reading It’s official, I’ve fallen in love with Majuro
Sara Cannon, PhD 