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Dr. Megan Dethier

Dr. Megan Dethier is a Research Professor in the Biology Department at the University of Washington but is in full-time residence at the Friday Harbor Laboratories, where she serves the Director. She did her undergraduate work at Carleton College in Minnesota, then PhD work at the University of Washington. Since ~1978 she has been in working on the shoreline ecology of the Pacific Northwest. Her first love is rocky shores, but she now also works in mud, gravel, and salt marsh habitats. She designed a marine habitat classification system for Washington state, and has worked with the National Park Service and various Washington agencies designing shoreline mapping and monitoring programs. Her current research efforts are mostly focused in Puget Sound, investigating the linkage between physical features of shoreline habitats and their biota, and the effects of human impacts (such as shoreline armoring) on this linkage. Some of her greatest pleasure comes from teaching marine biology to undergraduate students, which she has done at the Friday Harbor Labs for over 30 years, but also at marine labs elsewhere including Maine and Australia.