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I graduated from Torrance High School in June 1990 after which I attended the University of California, Santa Barbara where I earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Zoology with an emphasis in marine ecology. Santa Barbara was quite fun. Yeah, I know what you are thinking... Santa Barbara... the party capital of the West Coast. Ahh yes, sometimes I wonder why I ever left. Here's an interesting story about UCSB. In 1991, Newsweek Magazine ran their annual ranking of American universities and UCSB made it in the top five in the "party school" column AS WELL AS the "academic achievements" column! Which means that while a good party is always available on any given weekend (or a weekday for that matter), a good education is also readily attainable.

Aspiring to be a marine biologist, UCSB was the best possible place to be. I've always been an avid surfer and diver, and I always found time to play in the ocean between study sessions. While I was there, UCSB ranked #1 for marine biology programs - this is something I did not appreciate until after I found myself in the real world. Santa Barbara students in marine biology are exposed to lots of opportunities. For example, during my junior and senior years, I approached Professor Armand Kuris in the Biology Department regarding undergraduate research. The following day, Professor Kuris had introduced me to Kevin Lafferty, a post-doctoral researcher in his lab. Kevin had given me a "long shot" project and allowed me the freedom to run with it.

Download the paper here [pdf].

DISCLAIMER: This paper is published by The Ecological Society of America. You may download this paper if you are a student or faculty member of a qualifying institution and will use the paper for research or instructional purposes ONLY.

My task was to examine the impact that a particularly nasty parasite had on the behavior and ecology of a saltmarsh fish. What Kevin and I found is that this parasite, which encysts on the surface of the fish's brain, modifies the behavior of the fish rendering it more susceptible to predation by birds, the parasite's final host. Our findings were stunning. We co-authored a paper and it was published in the journal Ecology (see Lafferty and Morris, 1996, Ecology 77(5): 1390-1397). My little "senior honors thesis" took me far and benefited me in many ways. Completing the project also led me to graduate with distinction in my major. As you read this, our paper is still impacting the world of science. It is becoming widely cited, and has been a featured topic in four popular science journals/magazines (e.g August 2000 issue of Discover Magazine).

After graduating in June 1994, I moved to Kauai, the island where my mother was raised. I have always had an affinity for Kauai and Hawaiiana. Ever since I was old enough to remember, I spent entire summers on Kauai with my family. With a college degree and no money, this time I intended to find a job in paradise. I became a certified divemaster and underwater tour guide and became a dive jockey in short order. Up at 4:30am, dive all day, entertain tourists, and return home exhausted - every single day for four months! It was back-breaking work, but it was also one of the best summers of my life. The tourists loved the fact that their underwater guide had a degree in marine biology. By the end of the tourist season, I felt the urge to return to Santa Barbara. I stayed for a brief period working as a marine technician in the UCSB Marine Science Institute. I was there nine months to be exact, after which I found myself back on Kauai to do the whole divemaster thing again. All the while, I longed for the intellectual challenge of academia, and I began looking at graduate programs.

Graduate school was definitely a maturing experience. The reality of graduate life is something I will never forget. No money, no food, and irregular hours, not to mention the dampness and cold (pretty much standard 10 months out of the year in Oregon)... all to attain intellectual success in an incredibly narrow field about which few people care. But I feel more wise because of the experience. After all, since completing by Masters degree, I now know:

Seriously, my research project was very cool. I developed mathematical models that predicted modes of evolution between trophic strategies. Math usually bores people (or scares them depending on who they are) so I won't elaborate on my work here. If you REALLY want to know about it, follow this link to read a synopsis.

I managed to complete my Master of Science degree in June 1997 - just 21 months after my arrival. I must admit, the depressing weather was a good motivator to finish in a timely manner. Being raised in Southern California and Hawaii and living in Santa Barbara for five years, I'm not sure what I expected in Oregon, but I definitely was NOT prepared for my first winter. The temperature in Corvallis hovered at a frigid 35 degrees all the time... and I mean ALL the time. This meant that it was always just cold enough to NOT snow, which meant that I couldn't even enjoy the coldness. Eventually I got use to mildew. I grew accustomed to wearing lots of clothes all the time. Just turn up the heater you say??? Alas, every house in Corvallis was build when my grandmother was an infant! There was no such thing as a decent heater let alone adequate insulation to hold in any heat. I slept in a down jacket - I don't think I've touched that jacket since I left Oregon. I think the hardest part was the lack of sunlight for long periods of time - for example, it was overcast from January 5, 1996 to March 1, 1996 - the ENTIRE time!

But I made it out alive. I remember driving home from Oregon with all my worldly belongings strapped to my convertible mustang. I hadn't taken the top down but once in Oregon, and that was just to impress some friends. Now I was returning back to the land of perpetual sunshine. I remember heading down Highway 101 - where the highway curved through Pismo Beach was my first glimpse of the ocean.

working at MBC

working at Weston

Since 1997, I have been working in applied sciences. I got my start in the world of environmental consulting at MBC Applied Environmental Sciences where I worked on coastal marine biology issues. After nine wonderful years, I left MBC to join Weston Solutions, a much larger and more diverse consulting firm. At Weston, my responsibilities increased dramatically. I interacted more with clients and was able to conduct more cutting edge science - I guess you could say I was given a chance to stretch my science legs. I definitely learned a lot about the applied side of science while working as a consultant.

my graduate work

And at the same time that I was growing as a consultant, in Spring 2000 I started my doctoral studies at UCLA in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology. My research focused on studying patterns of zooplankton aggregations and developing novel ways to assess how much of their distribution is determined by behavior compared to physical factors. Since April 2000, I have collected data in Monterey Bay and Santa Monica Bay on zooplankton distributions along marine fronts. For a glimps of my completed graduate work, check out this link!

The latest development: I have ventured out on my own working as a private contractor consulting and working with clients on environmental issues. This freedom has also allowed me to expand my teaching career. Currently, I am teaching Oceanography at Fullerton College, and I am scheduled to teach more in the Fall. Stay tuned!