Easton named the Class of 1937 Professor of Marine Biology
(text below from UNH Instagram post)
Congratulations to Dr. Easton White, recipient of the UNH Class of 1937 Professorship in Marine Biology award!
Dr. White joined UNH in 2021 as an assistant professor of quantitative marine ecology. His research lab focuses on how stressors, especially rare events like hurricanes or the COVID-19 pandemic, impact commercially important aquaculture species. This award recognizes his excellence in teaching and research in marine biology within the School of Marine Science and Ocean Engineering (SMSOE) and provides three year's funding for his efforts to support the marine biology community.
"I believe a key area for bringing together faculty, students, and staff across SMSOE and beyond is with the application of quantitative tools," explained White after receiving the award. "The same quantitative tools are often applied across disciplines despite a lack of communication across fields. This Professorship would allow the development of two sets of activities that would benefit all SMSOE and UNH more broadly - both building a statistics and coding community, and developing new minors and graduate certificates in marine and environmental data science."
For the past two years, White has spearheaded the R User's Group at UNH, a support community for the commonly used statistics and coding language R. Students can attend to learn new R coding skills and ask questions to aid in their own research. White hopes to use the award's funding to expand the community to become coding-language agnostic, a helpful resource for students across all disciplines in COLSA and beyond.
White will also use the award to create both a new Minor and Graduate Certificate program in Marine Data Science. These new graduate programs will prepare SMSOE students for the competitive job market with quantitative and ecological skills needed to solve emerging problems in marine biology.
Congratulations again to Dr. White! Find out more about his research.