This year marks a milestone for three members of the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries (IOF) as faculty members Andrew Trites and Daniel Pauly are inducted into UBC’s Quarter Century Club, and Graduate Program Officer Eden Fellner joins the 25 Year Club for UBC staff.
Started in 1996, the Quarter Century Club/25 Year Club honours faculty and staff who have spent 25 years at UBC. New club members celebrate this achievement each fall at a dinner (postponed in 2020), where they receive a pin and a card that provides them with free access to the Botanical Gardens, discounted admission to the UBC Aquatic Centre and free parking at UBC campus upon retirement.
“UBC has been good to me, and I feel I have been good for UBC as well,” said UBC Killam Professor Daniel Pauly.
The research methods, concepts and software pioneered by Pauly continue to create innovations in the fields of fisheries science, marine biology and marine conservation as they are adopted by newer generations of researchers.
He said that some of his fondest memories of the past 25 years are of working in the huts when the IOF was still the Fisheries Centre.
“There was a magical period from 1995 to 2005 where the fisheries centre was working together on ecosystem modelling and the professors had each taken a different chunk of the work, which is very rare… We had a period of close collaboration between different labs. This grew apart, because such things cannot continue forever. But this was an extraordinary time that I recall with lots of joy,” he said.
Professor and marine mammal researcher Andrew Trites grew up in Nova Scotia and had planned to return to the East Coast one day but said that the research opportunities provided by UBC, as well as the close proximity to marine mammals in the North Pacific, kept him here. Here, Trites leads a research program that furthers the understanding and conservation of marine mammals, particularly Steller sea lions, northern fur seals, and harbour seals.
“The university has always been very supportive and encouraging for allowing me to build the research program I wanted,” he said.
One of Trites’ favourite experiences since joining UBC was helping to procure Big Blue, the massive blue whale skeleton on display in the Beaty Biodiversity Museum.
“I get a lot of satisfaction out of seeing people of all walks of life and of all ages come and marvel at it. It would not have happened without the support of the faculty and the Dean’s office. They just gave me the green light to go ahead and do it. That’s one of the things I like about the IOF and UBC: if you’ve got an idea — no matter how wacky it may seem — someone’s going to encourage you to explore it,” he said.
Tags: Andrew Trites, Awards, Daniel Pauly, Faculty, IOF staff, Marine Mammal Research Unit, Sea Around Us