NOAA Teacher at Sea
Nick Lee
Aboard NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson
June 29 – July 20, 2024
Mission: Pollock Acoustic-Trawl Survey
Geographic Area of Cruise: Eastern Bering Sea
Date: July 19, 2024
Weather Data from the Bridge:
Latitude: 53° 44.5 N
Longitude: 166° 54.0 W
Wind Speed: 15 knots
Air Temperature: 10.9° Celsius (51.62° Fahrenheit)
Science and Technology Log:
As my cruise begins to wrap up, I wanted to highlight some of the people I’ve been working closest with – the scientists on the night shift. Work on the ship continues 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and the night shift works from 4 pm – 4 am. The night shift has the same responsibilities as the day shift of monitoring acoustic data and processing trawls, tasks completed by scientists Sarah Stienessen, Matthew Phillips, and Robert Levine. To learn more about the scientists and their careers, I interviewed each of them:
Why did you decide to become a marine scientist?
Sarah: The short answer is in kindergarten, I checked out a book on dolphins and fell in love with the ocean!
Matthew: I grew up near the ocean, and as a kid, I always loved exploring and finding new fish. I knew I didn’t want to spend every day in an office, and so marine science seemed like a great way to pursue my passion and explore new places.
Robert: I actually wasn’t planning to. I was majoring in geology and environmental science, and I did a field semester in Hawaii. We did a three week class in conservation ecology using passive acoustics, and I thought it was the coolest thing. I did a marine mammal internship with acoustics, and after college, I worked in a zooplankton lab – the rest is history.
What are your responsibilities during the cruise?
Sarah: My responsibilities are to monitor and analyze the acoustic data and decide when and where to collect a biological sample (trawl) – that’s the daily stuff. I work on combining the acoustic data with the biological sample data to produce abundance and distribution estimates. I also coordinate pre- and post-cruise logistics.
Matthew: I’m the fish lab lead, so I’m responsible for supervising all of the trawl processing.
Robert: I’m here as an assistant to the fish lab lead and to explore new data types that we could use to enhance our data collection.
What do you enjoy the most about your work?
Sarah: On the boat, it’s teamwork and camaraderie with colleagues. On land, it’s the strategizing and planning around the logistics of fieldwork, both small scale and large scale.
Matthew: Seeing a species that’s new to me! I love seeing new fish, birds, and marine mammals.
Robert: I enjoy the balance between office work, getting to do fieldwork, and working on instrumentation. This group does a lot of research, but it’s all applied, which is the best part.
What part of your career did you least expect?
Sarah: Acoustics, fish, and Alaska!
Matthew: I never expected to be spending so much time in Alaska.
Robert: I never would have thought I would be on a boat actually doing the fishing.
What advice do you have for a young person interested in a career in marine science?
Sarah: Take lab-based course work that’s marine related and hands-on. Also, volunteer, intern, try to get a glimpse of the real life experience of what marine science is like. It’s good for giving you connections and for seeing if it’s something you really want to do.
Matthew: Be open-minded about different opportunities and unthought-of locations!
Robert: Find the thing that you like to do or are really good at. If you like chemistry or computer science, get a degree in that. Then apply it to marine science – you don’t have to have a biology degree and you can actually be more effective with an outside perspective.
Personal Log:
When I first boarded NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson I was hoping to be assigned the day shift (4 am – 4 pm). However, after I adjusted to the different sleep schedule, I found myself enjoying the nighttime hours when the ship was quieter. There is still a lot of fish processing to do during the night shift – this cruise, the ship has actually processed more trawls during our shift!
While nights are often busy in the fish lab, we’ll also have some downtime between trawls. During a few of these breaks, we played cribbage, a card game that scientist Robert Levine taught me early in the cruise. We’ll also frequent the galley for midnight meals together and to finish off the last of the dessert that our awesome stewards – Danielle and Missy – prepared that day (some highlights include butter mochi, lemon meringue pie, and a zucchini chocolate cake)!

On a couple nights, we’ve tracked our candy consumption, competing with the day shift to see who eats more. Being a science team, we felt compelled to convert between different units, expressing our final answer in terms of portion of the bag, mass, and individual sour patch kids!
Did you know?
Because pollock behavior changes at night, the scientists on this particular cruise don’t trawl between sunset and sunrise.














































