Summer 2025 Scallop Research and Student Mentoring Program
OVERVIEW
This summer, the Maria Mitchell Association, Great Harbor Yacht Club Foundation, the Nantucket Shellfish Association, and donors will be collaborating and providing grants to support the continuation of the Scallop Research and Student Mentoring Program. Our program director, assisted by two to four qualified collegiate research assistants, will operate this program at the Maria Mitchell Association’s science lab at 33 Washington St. Under the MMA, the program director and research assistants will be CORI/SORI checked and insured for liability.
BACKGROUND ON PROGRAM FOUNDER
Dr. Valerie Hall, Director Emeritus, taught science at Nantucket High School for 35 years until her retirement in 2004. While there, she instituted and taught the 9th Grade Marine Science Program while earning a master's degree in marine biology through Boston University. After her retirement, she entered a doctoral program at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, earning her PhD in Marine Science and Technology in 2014. Dr. Hall instituted and has been director of the scallop program since 2016.
PROGRAM FOCUS
The program’s predominant focus has been on population, ecology, and reproductive biology of the Nantucket Bay scallop. This program of study will continue this summer with a special emphasis on the impact of climate change on the timing of bay scallop reproduction and larval development. Students will join in testing the hypothesis that warming of seawater is causing a shift in spawning such that there may now be a mismatch between release of larvae and their food source, phytoplankton in the water column. We will also investigate other changes in the bay scallop’s habitat, such as the loss of eelgrass and increase in harmful algal blooms, which may be at least partially explained by climate change. The program collaborates with organizations such as the Nantucket Land and Water Council, Nantucket Conservation Foundation, Brant Point Shellfish Propagation Facility, Town of Nantucket Natural Resources Department and the UMASS Field Station to do this research.
Nantucket Dates:
Please choose preferred sessions & preferred time:
•Session I: June 16 – 27 ___ 9AM – 1PM
•Session II: June 30 – July 11 * ___ 9AM – 1:30PM
*No class on July 4th holiday, later end time on M,T,W, F of that week
•Session III: July 14 – 25 ___ 9AM – 1PM
•Session IV: July 28 – Aug 8 ___ 9AM – 1PM
•Session V: Aug 11 – Aug 22 ___ 9AM – 1PM
*Please note that session participants will be dedicated to a fieldtrip on the first Friday of the program and host a presentation of their work on the last Friday of the program.