Katie Schmidt joined the Starr Lab May 2008.  During the summer she was part of the science crew aboard Commercial Passenger Fishing Vessels and commercial trapping vessels, which were utilized for the California Collaborative Fisheries Research Program (partnered with SOL SEA at CAL POLY), incorporating local charter boats and captain’s knowledge, to conduct standardized near-shore fish population sampling and tagging, both inside Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and reference areas not under protection.  She is particularly interested in this project as it not only provides a third party fisheries resource assessment, and assesses the progress of the MPAs, but also involves public participation through the opportunity and necessity of volunteer anglers to physically catch the fish and the know-how of fishermen to find the fish and evaluate sample areas.

Not only do the anglers get to do something fun and useful, they also are directly exposed to scientific methods and standardization and the science crew can provide them easy access to answers of most fishery/ ichthyological questions they may have, so they may better understand why this type of sampling is necessary and/or fishery restrictions and resource management is necessary.

Katie is currently interested in providing resource managers the data required to make informed decisions regarding the resource, and may design her project around a fisheries topic.

Before admittance to Moss Landing Marine Labs, Katie finished her Bachelors of Science at Humboldt State University May 2007.  Between starting her under-graduate work, graduating, and continuing onto graduate school, she participated in many internships and temporary positions.  These include a summer REU at Rutgers University Field Station in New Jersey studying burrowing anemones, participating in a wide-spread shore-based survey for gray whales, stellar sea lions, and telemetry field assistance tracking harbor seals for three semesters for a marine mammal group, working part-time for Eureka Sea Grant surveying mudflats in Humboldt Bay for an alien eel grass, scientifically diving to collect sub-tidal data on northern California sites (Van Damme, Trinidad, Crescent City) for fish, algae & invertebrates, working for Oregon State University- Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO) in the Rocky Intertidal Oceanographic Team collecting settlement samples of mussel & barnacles of the Oregon coast to record settlement occurrences and oceanographic effects on settlement, and a brief internship at Mote Marine Lab in Florida, quality controlling data of past artificial reef surveys and volunteering at their injured sea turtle rehabilitation hospital (to recount a few…..)  She is currently a research assistant for her advisor, Dr. Rick Starr, and works part-time for an environmental consultant/ atmospheric scientist, Dr. Charles Schmidt.

During her free time, Katie enjoys fishing, diving, underwater photography, and traveling.  Please follow this link to an example of her photography work: http://www.dfg.ca.gov/marine/groundfishcentral/comdata.asp