Marjorie Wonham
She/They
I am queer and I am a marine biologist.//
I got hooked on marine biology the summer after grade 9, when I took a course at Huntsman Marine Lab in New Brunswick, Canada. The magic of tidepools was exceeded only by the magic of dissecting a sea cucumber. Its outer appearance belied its inner universe of colours and shapes.
Since then, I have called marine stations home, returning over multiple years to Tatoosh Island (WA), Bamfield (BC), Friday Harbor (WA), Catalina (CA), and SERC (MD), and visiting ECIM (Chile), Cenpat (Argentina), IOLR (Israel), and GUMP (Mo’orea).
I started out studying marine bioinvasions through plankton surveys from commercial ships, continued those questions in intertidal assemblages, detoured into mathematical modeling for a few years, taught field courses up and down the coast (more or less living out of Rubbermaid tubs in my car), and then landed at Quest University Canada, which was an interdisciplinary pedagogy heaven. I’m now back at one of my marine lab “homes”, Friday Harbor, where I teach marine biology courses and do marine and pedagogical research.
Check out this cool upcoming marine arts & sciences workshop – and apply to join! https://fhl.uw.edu/courses/training-workshops/marine-sciences-ocean-arts/