Tanja Schollmeir
Master’s student at the University of Alaska

What are you studying?

“Marine Biology. Initially, I was interested in dolphin therapy, which is using them to help children and adults with physical or mental impairments. Eventually I decided that I wanted to study animals that live on the bottom of the ocean, but I still like dolphins!”

What do you hope to find?

“I want to learn the effects of climate change on the animals at the bottom.”

What’s the most interesting thing you’ve recovered?

“Well for this trip so far, it has to be the five sea urchins that were brought up. Overall, the most interesting thing was a coral. The grabber got pulled off to side angle and the line was off to the side. It accidentally caught a coral that was about 5 feet long! It has this beautiful flower type structure on top.”