Bernadette Holthuis
By Meegan Corcoran
In January of 2015 FHL warmly welcomed Bernadette Holthuis, the new Program Coordinator and assistant to the Director. Although Bernadette is new to the position, she certainly is not a stranger to the Labs.
After graduating from Davis University with a Bachelor’s in Zoology in 1985 Bernadette spent her first summer at FHL as a student in the embryology course, which she describes as the best course she has ever taken. She was so enamored with the Labs that she decided to get a Ph.D. at the University of Washington studying the evolution of a group of snails called neritoid snails. During her studies Bernadette made her way to FHL as often as possible and TA’ed several courses.
After graduating, Bernadette received a fellowship at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C. and later moved to Guam where she served as a research associate from 1995-2000. In 2000, Bernadette, her husband Gustav, and their three girls moved to Florida where she was the research associate at the Florida Museum of Natural History as well as a fellow at University of Florida’s Whitney Marine Lab.
Bernadette has a passion for public outreach and helped create a fantastic database of marine and estuarine fauna of a bank of the west coast of Florida. This database also acts as an interactive public field guide. More recently, Bernadette assisted Susan Middleton with her book “Spineless” by identifying marine invertebrates and writing the species profiles.
Bernadette is ecstatic to have finally made Friday Harbor her home and is looking forward to all of the opportunities FHL has to offer. We are thrilled that she's here!
