Current Tidings

Shannon Point Marine Center

Volume 2026, Issue 1

For nearly four decades, the Shannon Point Marine Center has given undergraduate students something that can change the trajectory of their life: the opportunity to become scientists by doing real science.

The SPMC Summer Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program began with the vision of longtime SPMC Director Dr. Steve Sulkin, who, in 1988, developed the first successful National Science Foundation proposal for an REU site at Shannon Point. That first cohort of summer students has been followed by 35 more, with only three interruptions: in 1989 during a proposal revision period, in 2019 during a leadership transition, and in 2020 (you can probably guess why everything was on hold that year). 

The remarkable longevity of the SPMC REU program reflects Steve’s vision and SPMC’s enduring commitment to mentoring the next generation of marine scientists. Today, that legacy is stronger than ever.

Nine Weeks. Real Research. Life-Changing Results.

Each summer, eight undergraduate students come to SPMC from institutions around the country for an intensive, nine-week research experience. Working one-on-one with faculty mentors, students develop their own research questions, design and conduct experiments, analyze data, and present their findings through oral and written scientific reports.

The REU philosophy is simple: students learn science best by doing science.

Participants arrive with limited research experience and just nine weeks to complete meaningful research. Before the students even reach Anacortes, their faculty mentors begin building relationships and introduce them to the questions and literature that will shape their work. Once on site, students take increasing ownership of their projects as their skills and confidence grow. The result is more than a summer internship - it is an authentic introduction to the life of a scientist.

SPMC REU students investigate some of the most pressing questions facing our coastal oceans, drawing on expertise in ecology, oceanography, genomics, biogeochemistry, physiology, and climate science. Their projects address ecosystem resilience, biodiversity, conservation, restoration, and sustainable resource management, using modern field, laboratory, molecular, and modeling technique

In the past three years, SPMC has received an average of 484 applications annually, representing 508 institutions (including 32 community colleges) in 49 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. This extraordinary demand demonstrates both the need for high-quality undergraduate research opportunities and the national reputation SPMC has earned.

In selecting program participants, we seek individuals who have had limited research opportunity, including students from primarily undergraduate institutions, community colleges, institutions with limited research infrastructure, and from regions with few marine science opportunities. We also strive to reach students early in their academic career when a successful research engagement can have the biggest impact of their interests, retention in science, and future success. 

The SPMC program is unique in another way. Two of the student participants have the opportunity to participate in SPMC’s innovative scientific diving program, introduced in 2023. Through intensive training accomplished within the nine-week program, students earn American Academy of Underwater Sciences (AAUS) certification and complete diving-based research. For students who could not otherwise get this specialized training, the opportunity can open an entirely new professional pathway.

One former REU diving student described the transformative power of the experience this way,

“It (the REU program) completely changed the way I see my life playing out. Before I arrived, I knew that SCUBA was an important hobby to me and that I loved the water and was fascinated by what I'd heard about the ocean, but I felt disconnected from marine science. However, in the diving program there, I spent most days of the week submerged in the mysticism and divinity of the sea. I was awestruck even by the barnacles on the pier pilings. I also learned about how understudied the water is, and I was able to conduct a project that I believe could truly benefit the marine science community. I spent the summer underwater connecting with the Earth in life-changing ways, and I am walking away with a paper and presentation that I am proud of, as well as multiple SCUBA certifications that will launch me into a brand-new career path that I did not foresee and would never have found without this REU.”

Investing in the Next Generation

The SPMC REU program is about more than producing good research, though that is certainly a priority. The program is an investment in people. Access to a program like SPMC’s can be transformative. Thirty-six years of assessment have enabled us to refine our approaches to supporting the professional development and long-term success of the participants. Those data also demonstrate the program’s effectiveness. Students leave SPMC with research skills, professional networks, greater confidence, and a clearer vision of their career possibilities. Many continue into graduate education and careers in science, education, conservation, resource management, and environmental leadership. Their experiences ripple outward through their future work and through the students and communities they will ultimately serve.

2026 Summer REU participants, their home institutions, their research, and their faculty advisors

Noell Fritz (Allegheny College), Analyzing the effects of ash sedimentation from the 2022 Hunga eruption on zooplankton communities of hydrothermal vents (Shawn Arellano, advisor) 

Kevin O’Connor (University of California Santa Cruz) and Lamar Gordon (Northern Michigan University), An analysis of novel methods for improving pinto abalone survivorship (Derek Smith and Nate Schwarck, advisors)

Janeyssy Morillo (University of Massachusetts Boston), Population structure in the basket cockle, Clinocardium nuttallii, and tracing the origin of bivalve transmissible cancer (Jay Dimond, advisor)

Courtney Urbanek (University of Wisconsin Madison), The relationship between harbor porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) feeding behavior and the El Niño/Southern Oscillation in the Salish Sea (Cindy Elliser, advisor)

Henry Mulder (University of Michigan Ann Arbor), The effects of pelagic diatoms on surf smelt (Hypomesus pretiosus) embryo development (Brady Olson and Morgan Eisenlord, advisors)

Kylie Guina (California State University Stanislaus), Effects of tidal exposure and polyunsaturated aldehydes on surf smelt (Hypomesus pretiosus) embryonic development (Brady Olson and Morgan Eisenlord, advisors)

Hahna Beaudoin (Whitman College), Impacts of calcein marking on juvenile pinto abalone (Haliotis kamschatkana) stress and survival (Alan Verde, advisor)

Andrew Paley’s marine science career began on the deck of a tall ship.

As a child, Andrew was perfectly content spending his days indoors - until his parents sent him to a “summer camp” experience sailing aboard a tall ship off the California coast. He loved it, and the die was cast. 

Andrew returned to the tall ships again and again, not as a camper, but as a staff member working in merchant-marine-type positions. Life at sea deepened his interest in marine science, eventually leading him to the University of Washington where he studied marine biology and oceanography. His shipboard experience led to work off the Washington coast with the Cabled Observatory program where he became fascinated by the animals living around deep-sea hydrothermal vents.

These habitats cover a tiny fraction of the seafloor, and the islands of vent-fueled life can be separated by enormous stretches of seafloor. Individual vents may exist for only a few decades before tectonic shifts alter the pathways that supply them with superheated fluids. When that happens, the living communities collapse. These features led to the question Andrew is pursuing in his graduate degree: 

How do baby invertebrates find their way from place to place in this inhospitable landscape?

Many species in the vent communities produce planktonic larvae – tiny, drifting young that spend time in the water column. But where do they go? Do they rise to the surface to feed? If so, how do they get there? If they remain in the deep, how do they feed in an environment with no photosynthesis? If they do travel to the surface to feed, how do they get back to the bottom and find another vent home? 

Andrew is using environmental DNA (eDNA) to search for evidence of deep-sea vent invertebrates (primarily snails) in near-surface waters of the Lau Basin near Tonga. The approach is promising, but a DNA signal alone doesn’t mean a living deep-sea larva was there; DNA signals could come from a few cells from an adult, from adult waste products, or from other biological materials transported to the surface. 

To distinguish between these possibilities, Andrew and his collaborators collected eDNA samples at different depths using a CTD rosette while simultaneously collecting zooplankton with plankton net tows. By comparing the organisms detected by eDNA with those actually captured in the nets, they hope to determine whether eDNA can provide a reliable way to track deep-sea larvae.

For Andrew, the most rewarding part of graduate school has been owning a research project. After years of contributing to other scientists’ projects, he is excited to pursue questions that are his own, working through unexpected challenges (including what appears to have been an encounter between a cookie cutter shark and his deployed plankton net), and finally seeing the results begin to emerge.

Andrew considers himself fortunate to work with his graduate advisor, Dr. Shawn Arellano, at SPMC, where he is embedded in one of the few laboratories in the world directly studying larval processes of deep-sea animals. The work is demanding and challenging, but also exactly the kind of hands-on science that brought Andrew from the deck of a tall ship to the deep ocean.

When he is not in the laboratory running sensitive DNA analyses or peering through a microscope at plankton samples - which is not very often - Andrew enjoys caring for his two cats, powerlifting, or making the drive to Anacortes while listening to audiobooks. His latest listen is Squid Empire: The Rise and Fall of the Cephalopods, which he recommends as an entertaining look at the invertebrates that first invented the act of swimming.

Recent publications by SPMC faculty, staff, and students

Agnew-Camiener MV, Eisenlord ME, Friedman CS, Schreier HJ, Burge CA (2025) Pathogenicity and phylogeny of Labyrinthula spp. isolated in Washington and Oregon, USA. Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology 72, e13073 

Carrier TJ, Elder H, Macrander J, Dimond JL, Bingham BL, Reitzel AM (2025) Symbiont-mediated metabolic shift in the sea anemone Anthopleura elegantissima. Molecular Ecology 34:317722 DOI:10.111/mec.17722.  

Chaknova M, Giachetti T, Crundwell M, Soule A, van Eaton A, Beinart R, Paredes-Mariño J,  Cronin SJ, Kula T, Arellano SM, Young C, Tran D (2025). How did westward volcaniclastic deposits accumulate in the deep sea following the January 2022 eruption of Hunga Volcano? Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems https://doi.org/10.1029/2024GC011629  

Graham OJ, Aoki LR, Rappazzo B, Eisenlord M, Harvell CD (2025) Deeper eelgrass meadows are refugia from disease and environmental stressors. Frontiers in Marine Science 12:1542488  

Johnson JP, Lemkau KL, Parker IW, Olson MB (2025). Inorganic carbon enrichment does not increase production of polyunsaturated aldehydes in a pelagic and benthic diatom. Plos One 20(7), p.e0328171.  

Kléparski L, Ostle C, Batten S, Djeghri N, Hauri C, Pagés R, Strom S (2025) How marine heatwaves are reshaping phytoplankton in the Northeast Pacific. Limnology and Oceanography 70: 2447-2463 https://doi.org/10.1002/lno.70137 

Mouret RZ, Hourdez S, Curran M, DiBenedetto MH, Mills SW, Vetriani C, Arellano SM, Weston JNJ, Dykman LN, Best AC, Pires A, Mullineaux LS (2025) Pressurized plankton observatory offers a new window into deep-sea larval behavior. Limnology and Oceanography Methods https://doi.org/10.1002/lom3.10708  

Nolan CT, McBride IT, Reid N, Yang S, Imaizumi T, Ruesink JL, Gaeckle JL. Accepted (2026). Accelerated flowering and differential florigen gene expression of seagrass Zostera marina under experimental warming. Ecology and Evolution, DOI: 10.1002/ece3.72942 

Raymer R, Jessa SM, Cooper WJ, Olson MB (2025) The effects of diatom polyunsaturated aldehydes on embryonic and larval zebrafish (Danio rerio). Ecotoxicology: 1-12 

Shaw K, Smith D (2026). Establishing a long-term study on the population dynamics of Ptilosarcus gurneyi (orange sea pen) and observations of its interspecific interactions. Northwest Science 99(2) 

Waga H, Kelly T, Burt W, Strom S, Lowin B (2025) Bio-optical retrievals of primary production using a shipboard underway system in the northern Gulf of Alaska. Optics Express 33, 46873-46891 https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.573466 

Weinandt SA, Child ZJ, Lartey D, Santos A, Maxfield H, Sevigny JK, Garrett FES, Smith PD, Giersch RM, Hart SFM, Perez F, Rabins L, Kaiser S, Boyar A, Newton J, Kerr J, Dimond JL, Metzger MJ (2024) Atlantic to Pacific: Outbreak of bivalve transmissible neoplasia detected in soft-shell clams (Mya arenaria) and eDNA in Puget Sound. bioRxiv doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.12.03.626659 

Yonemitsu MA, Sevigny JK, Vandepas LE, Dimond JL, Giersch RM, Gurney-Smith HJ, Abbott CL, Supernault J, Withler R, Smith PD, Weinandt SA, Garrett FES, Child ZJ, Sigo RLW, Unsell E, Crim RN, Metzger MJ (2025) Multiple lineages of transmissible neoplasia in the basket cockle (C. nuttallii) with repeated horizontal transfer of mitochondrial DNA. Molecular Ecology 2025:e17682