By Liv Smith
On Wednesday, Nov. 4, the Gettysburg College Environmental Studies Department hosted Gettysburg Professor, Tasha Gownaris, who gave students an ‘informal’ seminar regarding Gownaris’s academic and professional path to becoming a marine scientist.
The event had pizza, snacks and other refreshments that attendees were welcome to enjoy.
After giving a brief introduction, Professor Gownaris welcomed student and co-chair of the Environmental Studies Advisory Board, Holly Vollman ’26. According to Vollman, the ES student advisory board wanted to host an ‘informal’ event like that of ‘Making a Marine Scientist’ to “help increase transparency between the professors and students, and to help everyone get to know each other and also make sure students get to know each other.”
Additionally, Vollman stated that this event was organized as a means of “branching out to students by letting professors talk about their path as scientists and as academics.” According to both Vollman and Gownaris, this was the first-ever event that the Environmental Studies (ES) department hosted in such a way that was also informal.
‘Making a Marine Scientist’ was a seminar in which Gownaris discussed her academic career, the lessons she learned, as well as what projects she is working on now, namely collaborations with students.
Gownaris started her seminar by detailing her life growing up, telling attendees that after graduating from high school, she came to Gettysburg College as a first-generation student to pursue an undergraduate education in marine science.
As a Gettysburg College student, Gownaris was mentored by a prior Gettysburg Professor, John Commito. After completing her PhD, she took his position at the college following his retirement.
After discussing her undergraduate education, Gownaris then told attendees of her graduate school education at Stony Brook University in New York. In particular, she wanted to study and work with marine megafauna, and she later obtained her PhD in oceanography.
During her first year at Stony Brook, Gownaris had the opportunity to work with marine life at Lake Turkana in Kenya, where she studied how changes in the water flow of the lake would impact the lake’s fisheries, due to the building of a dam.
“What I was able to show was that when the dams would go in, there would be a reduced water level and reduced fluctuations in water level, which turned out to be really important for this ecosystem,” Gownaris told attendees. “I was also able to show, for the first time using historical fisheries data, that the catch in that lake is actually more strongly related to water level fluctuations rather than the number of boats and fishers.”
Additionally, Gownaris had the opportunities to teach two classes during her graduate education, one on women in science and the other on oceanography.
Furthermore, Gownaris emphasized the important lessons she learned during her time at Lake Turkana, saying, “I learned how to collaborate effectively and ethically internationally, and that involves a lot of involving people and asking them what questions they want the answers to.”
In her postdoctoral career, Gownaris studied and worked with penguins in Punta Tombo, Argentina through the University of Washington. There, she studied the decline of the Argentine penguin population.
There, she found that “females have a much lower survival than males, particularly in years where survival overall is low. So when conditions are bad is when females really struggle,” and as a result, “the sex ratio has become skewed. There are fewer breeding pairs, the proportion of males has declined, and the males (in total) have declined, and the males are fighting more.”
Gownaris also discussed her time working for the 10×20 Initiative, in which she researched how to protect 10 percent of the ocean by the year 2020, and presented her findings to the United Nations.
Next, Gownaris detailed the path that led her to teaching as a professor at Gettysburg College, saying, “I knew I wanted to work at a PUI (primarily undergraduate institution) because of how much of a difference my undergraduate advisor had on me, and I wanted to be able to work one-on-one with students doing research. So, I knew I wanted a field site that I could bring students to that was related to conservation.”
More recently, as Gownaris discussed, she has been working with marine birds off the coast of the Gulf of Maine, where she studies various kinds of birds and their ecological roles.
“I’m interested in individual responses to climate change and how this influences their fitness. Not at the population level, but the individual level, and how these individuals respond to these changes,” Gownaris stated.
Lastly, Gownaris shared some of the key lessons she learned in the beginning of her career as a professor, saying, “I really love teaching and collaboration with students. Collaboration beyond my institutions is key, and pursuing your passions is really important.”
