April 11, 2022, by Alex McCarrel

The Sitka Sound Science Center is excited to welcome Julie Schram as this month’s Scientist in Residency Fellow (SIRF). The SIRF Fellowship is meant to provide four weeks for scientists to have time to work on their research and engage a breadth of the community in a variety of ways. Ms. Schram’s fellowship is funded from the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ NSF EPSCoR (National Science Foundation Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research) program.

Julie Schram recently joined the University of Alaska Southeast (UAS) Natural Science department as an Assistant Professor of Animal Physiology after finishing a Postdoctoral Fellowship with the Coastal Trophic Ecology Lab at the University of Oregon. Julie has a Master of Science and PhD from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where her studies focused on organismal responses to ocean acidification, the reduction in the seawater pH over an extended time through absorption of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Julie is a marine ecologist, interested in how environmental factors influence organismal and food web ecology and how human induced changes to coastal environments impacts the marine communities on which we depend. She is working on projects that utilize fatty acids (the building blocks of lipids) to better understand invertebrate feeding ecology by studying interactions between seaweeds and their consumers. Besides the community events listed below, Julie will connect with community members interested in mariculture and seaweed diversity to gain valuable insights. Julie will also be attending the Sitka Sound Science Center’s Earth Day Celebration, as well as leading fun-filled beach excursions with 1^st graders from Baranoff Elementary School.

Mark Your Calendars!

• The Morning Interview– Click here to listen to Julie’s radio interview
• Learn to Knit Sea Critters Workshop- Hosted by SSSC on Friday April 15^th @ 5:30 PM
• Natural History Seminar w/ Kitty LaBounty – In partnership with the University of Alaska Southeast, a virtual seminar about Julie’s research in Antarctica. Click here to watch the Zoom recording of her presentation
• Artistry of Algae Workshop– Hosted by SSSC on April 28^th at 5:30 PM

Follow @sitakscience or email Alex McCarrel, SIRF Coordinator, at amccarrel@sitkascience.org for event registration details. Julie Schram can be reached directly at (907) 796-6599 or email her at jbschram@alaska.edu.