{"id":73334,"date":"2018-01-23T10:16:29","date_gmt":"2018-01-23T20:16:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=73334"},"modified":"2019-03-19T11:13:11","modified_gmt":"2019-03-19T21:13:11","slug":"a-role-model-who-revels-in-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2018\/01\/23\/a-role-model-who-revels-in-research\/","title":{"rendered":"A role model who revels in research"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><div class=\"responsive-video-wrap\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"676\" height=\"380\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7DGqyAVn2Kg\" title=\"YouTube video player\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>As a child growing up on <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Island, <strong>Narrissa Spies<\/strong> thought the classroom and beach were two separate and distinct places. Today, this 35-year-old graduate student in <a href=\"https:\/\/manoa.hawaii.edu\/graduate\/content\/zoology\">zoology<\/a> at the <a href=\"http:\/\/manoa.hawaii.edu\/\">University of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at M\u0101noa<\/a> knows that protecting coral reefs is both her future job and life&#8217;s passion.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I grew up in a house that didn&#8217;t have electricity, so for us going to the beach during the day was an amazing way to escape,&rdquo; said Spies. &ldquo;I didn\u2019t realize as a child that I could do those types of things as a career, that I could investigate sea creatures, turn over rocks, as my job.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/manoa-spies-n.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/manoa-spies-n-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"Nerrissa Spies and Bob Richmond in the lab\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-73374\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/manoa-spies-n-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/manoa-spies-n-630x353.jpg 630w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/manoa-spies-n.jpg 676w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Thanks to a $45,000 fellowship from the Kohala Center, a Waimea-based nonprofit, Spies is spending the 2017&#8211;18 academic year finishing her doctorate on how coral are able to withstand multiple stressors resulting from human activities.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/manoa.hawaii.edu\/biology\/people\/robert-richmond\"><strong>Bob Richmond<\/strong><\/a>, her faculty advisor and director of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kewalo.hawaii.edu\/\">Kewalo Marine Lab<\/a>, says Spies is more than a brilliant scientist: She is a cultural practitioner who will inspire future ocean researchers.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;For many scientists, the coin of the realm is the peer-reviewed publication. They say, &lsquo;Okay, my job is done, I&#8217;ve published the paper,&lsquo;&rdquo; said Richmond. &ldquo;For Narrissa and her generation, that is no longer sufficient. &lsquo;We&#8217;ve done the science, we&#8217;ve published the paper and now we have to put that knowledge to work.&rsquo; And that&#8217;s what distinguishes her from a lot of other people.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Spies grew up in Hilo and Kawaihae, where her childhood aspiration was to become a medical researcher. She began her studies at <a href=\"http:\/\/hawaii.hawaii.edu\/\"><span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Community College<\/a>, graduating from <a href=\"https:\/\/hilo.hawaii.edu\/\"><abbr title=\"University of Hawaii\">UH<\/abbr> Hilo<\/a> with a bachelor of arts in <a href=\"https:\/\/hilo.hawaii.edu\/catalog\/ba_biol_cell\">biology<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/hilo.hawaii.edu\/catalog\/ba_anth\">anthropology<\/a>, and a <a href=\"https:\/\/hilo.hawaii.edu\/catalog\/ms_tcbes\">master&#8217;s degree in tropical conservation biology and environmental science<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Today, you&#8217;ll find Spies at the Kewalo Marine Lab, near <span aria-label=\"Kakaako\">Kaka&#699;ako<\/span> Waterfront Park, where she is on schedule to earn a doctorate in zoology in Spring 2018. She continues her research after receiving yet another honor&#8212;a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to engage high school students in the natural sciences as a career path.<\/p>\n<p>By demonstrating her high level of success, this role model will increase the number of Native Hawaiian professionals with a cultural affinity for protecting fragile natural resources.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I feel it&#8217;s important to educate students in <abbr title=\"Science Technology Engineering and Math\">STEM<\/abbr> (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) because these are our resources in <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>,&#8221; said Spies. &ldquo;And who better to care for these resources than people who grew up here, and can understand how important they are to our local community.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/video.php?href=https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/universityofhawaii\/videos\/10155367404248099\/&#038;show_text=0&#038;width=400\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" style=\"border:none;overflow:hidden\" scrolling=\"no\" allowTransparency=\"true\" allowFullScreen=\"true\" title=\"Facebook video player\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Narrissa Spies, a graduate student in the College of Natural Sciences, is a cultural practitioner who will inspire future ocean researchers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,12],"tags":[308,758,61,508,232,71,14,9,56,150],"class_list":["post-73334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people","category-video","tag-college-of-natural-sciences","tag-environmental-science","tag-hawaii-community-college","tag-kewalo-marine-laboratory","tag-tropical-conservation-biology-and-environmental-science","tag-uh-community-colleges","tag-uh-hilo","tag-uh-manoa","tag-video-2","tag-zoology","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73334"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74100,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73334\/revisions\/74100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}