Lucie Nolden

I’m Lucie Nolden, a rising junior and Earth and Oceanographic Sciences major at Bowdoin College, and I’m from Lexington, Massachusetts. This summer I will be working with Sarah Rubenstein, who is doing her Master’s work at the University of Maine. Her work studies the effect of fishways and fish lifts in Maine’s rivers on salmon migrating upstream to spawn, since even when salmon can bypass a dam, the delay associated with the bypass and the thermal conditions below dams can force salmon to allocate more of their energy reserves towards survival, likely compromising their ability to spawn lots of large eggs. This summer I will be helping Sarah by spending lots of hours measuring salmon eggs! Even though measuring hundreds of fish eggs might sound a little … tedious… to some, I’m super excited about this work because of its relevance to policy in Maine that regulate dams and protect our endangered Atlantic salmon, and because I will be learning about the work that goes into generating, analyzing, and interpreting the results of scientific data. Coincidentally, I’m also thrilled to be doing this work because for the past three semesters, my on-campus job has been Egg Chef, meaning that my streak of egg-related jobs is now at 2. It would be a dream of mine to one day be a researcher myself, egg or otherwise. My primary research interests include Maine fisheries and arctic permafrost, and I also think that mushrooms are the coolest. Which is to say, I have no clue what my career will look like.

Outside of work and school, I’m deeply passionate about organizing, and have spent the past two years organizing with the Bowdoin hub of the Sunrise Movement, pushing for a just transition to a fossil-fuel free economy. Reach out to me if you want to talk about the Green New Deal or police abolition! When I need a break, I love to hike, bike, run, and rock climb, and I also consider myself a very creative chef. I’m re-watching Avatar: The Last Airbender for the second time and would love to talk about how incredible it is.

Lucie is a 2020 Undergraduate Intern in Sea-run Fish Research.