Jennifer Hill Ph.D.

a shooting star with the words " the more you know " behind it ALT: a shooting star with the words " the more you know " behind it

Happy to report my ecology class activity on zoonotic disease and the recent events of bird flu transmission in cattle has firmly changed the mind of at least one student to not drink raw milk anymore……

Finally get a floating plant salinity stress test study going with my undergrads. Kiddie pools all set up outside with different salinity treatments. And now we are forecasted to potentially get over 4 inches of rain 🤦‍♀️
Yay for early morning runs to the store to grab plastic tarps! 😬

Ok this is just super cool!

I need this in my life. My favorite critter!

Yay! And you got a spider crab. They are my favorite.

And then we got back to the dock and my students had boat driving lessons with the LUMCON captains. Learning to drive boats is an important skill.

A day in the marsh collecting periwinkle snails. My students were blessed by the marsh gods (I.e sunk in the mud) many times.

I got to jump in to the bay to remove a derelict crab trap that wrapped around our boat prop. Thank the marsh gods I left wire snips in my dry bag from our last trip!

Dude have you been in my office spying on me and the advice I tell my students….cuz this is pretty much verbatim what I tell them. (At a state school 6 hours from the coast)

a man in a suit and tie is making a sad face in front of a window with blinds . ALT: a man in a suit and tie is making a sad face in front of a window with blinds .

One of my students told me this week that every time she hears all this autism, vaccine, and Tylenol stuff in the news, she hears my voice in her head saying “correlation is not causation” and “ shark attacks are correlated with ice cream sales”

Someone listened and learned. It is possible!

This scandalous share made me laugh out load. And it makes me happy to know the scourge of defunct thermostats is not limited to my campus.

Thanks to being a marine ecologist, I could probably build you a shopping mall out of pvc, vexar mesh, and zip ties.

Ditto. Where is my money?

Which is why we need the engagement of the arts, humanities, and social sciences.
We cannot “science only” our way out of these problems.

Banana slug!

Cool weather. Delicious wine. Big redwood trees. Loving the vacation life away from the Louisiana heat and humidity.

How I know I’m a marine scientist always: I grab some coralline algae to take home for my teaching collection. (And I take pictures of algae while my husband patiently waits and rolls his eyes)

Pants and biking in August?! You are brave ( and probably sweaty!)

When you are doing behavior experiments where you test effects of movement and shadows, one must make a researcher cubby hole.
Kaylie said “ if someone walked in, they will think I’m nuts”
I said, “welcome to the fabulous world of ecology where we contrive scientific contraptions from Lowe’s”

Also I should add that thanks to this article, now every time I visit the Pacific Northwest, my brain is thinking “don’t you dare Mr. Fault line…..”

I have my marine bio students read this article every class because we discuss formation of coasts and oceans. It’s a great article and none of them know about this fault line. Wonderful writing!

When you can hang upside down by your toes Mr. Squirrel off the eaves of our roof, I can’t be anything but impressed. Also that is spicy bird cake, so apparently you are also a Cajun squirrel

Hey academic friends. You know something ChatGPT does well: it can make you an excel file of all your class dates so you can update your class calendars for fall. You’re welcome.

So now we are back to periwinkle climbing studies this afternoon. This experiment is classic predator cue study to see if crushed conspecifics, predator urine, or the combination of a predator eating crushed conspecifics elicit similar climbing responses.

This week we did some cercarial shedding studies with our periwinkles to see if trematode parasites might be impacting our snail behavior experiments. But after a rate of 1 in 90 snails with a trematode infection, I think that answer is a hard no

Raccoon eyes peaking over leaves

Baby raccoon in fig tree

Cute and fat little evening visitors to our fig tree.

Speak up for Sea Grant!

A blue poster describing opportunities to join the Bernhardt Lab -- for more information please see https://www.bernhardtlab.org/join-us

✨ The Bernhardt Lab at the University of Guelph is recruiting graduate students for 2026! Join us! We have several fully funded grad positions available ✨

Please spread the word!

www.bernhardtlab.org/join-us

#CSEE2025

an elderly woman knitting with the words oh my sweet summer child below her ALT: an elderly woman knitting with the words oh my sweet summer child below her

My undergrads did some initial packing for our trip to the coast this weekend.
1 pair of scissors, 1 sharpie, 1 pencil.
Sweet summer children …….
Now I duplicate all the things and throw in lots of just in cases

I need this mug!

Help us record firefly flashes! 👇🙏