We are excited to welcome Jessica Holden to the Ecology team at the Firelight Group!  Jess holds an MSc in Biology from the University of Victoria and will be joining Firelight as a Junior Researcher. She is enrolled as a Biologist-in-Training in the College of Applied Biology, and will be working towards becoming certified as a Registered Professional Biologist in British Columbia.

Jess’ Master’s research focused on the intertidal deposition, food provision, and commercial harvesting of a non-indigenous seaweed on the east coast of Vancouver Island.  During her research, she had the opportunity to work with a variety of stakeholder groups including local communities, commercial harvesters, government regulators and other scientists.

Jess is passionate about applied science:

“I’ve been so fortunate to have worked on projects of relevance to communities, resource management, and even policy, and I’ve found these experiences so rewarding…  It was exciting to do research that was so directly and instantly relevant to residents in the area.  I love that science can benefit human and natural systems alike when it’s applied or used to inform management decisions and evidence-based policy.”