Meet the Scientist: Katie May Laumann

Hi everyone, I’m Katie May Laumann (I go by Katie May) and I’m a Science Integrator and the Associate Director of Research at IAN. My path to this job has been long and winding, and included stops in some exciting places. During my undergraduate studies, I did field research on seagrasses in Fiji and the Solomon Islands, conservation in Peru and Costa Rica, and spent a summer digging up dinosaur fossils in the badlands of South Dakota. I went on to study seafood sustainability, writing the first sushi sustainability guide with Blue Ocean Institute while I earned my Master’s degree in Conservation Biology.

When it was time for a Ph.D., I went back to my paleontology + marine science roots and studied a family of living fossil fishes, the sturgeons! Also known as the caviar fish, sturgeons are fascinating creatures that hatch in freshwater and move into the ocean as juveniles, returning to the stream where they hatched only for reproduction. You may think “that sounds like salmon”. However, unlike salmon, sturgeons do not die after spawning- they move back into the ocean until the next spawning season! I was lucky enough to sequence the full mitochondrial (maternal) DNA of each of the 27 sturgeon species, working with an expert who developed the sequencing method I used, during two summers in Japan. Since then, I have worked in fisheries management, maintained a tilapia fish hatchery, and taught science to people of all ages.

I finally settled in Maryland and began working at IAN. Here, I get to combine my passion for conservation with my love of marine and freshwater biology, studying how to help human communities prepare for climate change using nature-based methods, and providing advice on how to best conserve forest and stream ecosystems in the face of climate change across various national parks. My favorite part of this job is knowing I am making a difference in helping both people and nature survive the threats of climate change.

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