Photo of Glossy Ibis by Katlyn Taylor (2025 Season Captain)

Monthly Newsletter

November 2025

This newsletter includes the following topics: 

Greetings to the Shoals Community:

 

At this time of year, I often reflect on the things for which I am grateful. This provides me with a time to count my blessings and to remind myself how many good things are in my life.  Typically, I include gratitude for my family and friends, for time I get to spend with them, and for special events from the last year or those we’re planning for the coming year.  I also include my Shoals family in this list.

 

As most of our community know, the Shoals permanent staff is hard-working, dedicated, creative, and passionate.  Over the last two years, I have become even more impressed with the individual strengths and knowledge of each team member.  I’ve also seen the sacrifices and trade-offs that team members make to be able to support the running of the Lab, both living on the island throughout our season and during the “off-season” as we plan for the next year’s classes and events, recruit and enroll students, prepare for researchers and interns, address facilities and infrastructure needs, and recruit and hire an incredible seasonal staff.  Not only do they bring both professionalism to their role and responsiveness to whatever wrinkle is thrown our way, they also bring a team dynamic that ensures our decisions and plans include the voices that need to contribute to any conversation. Further, each brings a sense of fun and adventure to the island and our activities that helps build and nurture our island community each summer.  How fortunate am I to be surrounded by this group of people both on and off the island!

 

For more than three decades, I have watched the island community develop each summer because of the energy and enthusiasm of the seasonal staff.  During my earliest years at the Lab when I was doing field work for my graduate degrees, I saw the staff at the beginning and end of each summer.  However, until last year, I hadn’t seen the cadence and complexity of our summer’s courses and activities.  Our programs, waterfront, facilities, and kitchen teams work tirelessly to make the island and our programs run smoothly.  Most of our seasonal staff members have never visited Appledore, and yet they seamlessly jump into their individual roles and the shared community activities.  In our first days together on the island, they develop a connection to the island, the Lab, and each other, and we quickly become family.  The end of each season is hard, knowing that this amazing group will not be together again.  I am comforted by the knowledge that I will cross paths with many members of the seasonal team on future volunteer weekends, visits to the Lab, or even courses they might teach. I am so lucky to be surrounded by the drive, commitment, and talents of a phenomenal group of people who make Appledore their home for a summer.

 

While the seasonal staff is often new, many members of our community return each year.  The commitment of our volunteers, faculty, researchers, collaborators, and supporters is both inspirational and heartwarming.  Each summer, I get to see friends I have made over decades at the Lab. I have watched students and staff become faculty, passing on the best in experiential, place-based educational practices to our current students.  I have watched our volunteers transform the island from its winter storage to the bustling operations for the summer and back again.  I have watched scores of people wash dishes in the kitchen (I tried to keep a list this year, but too many people didn’t sign when they helped)! I have seen the results of our community’s philanthropy—students who could only attend SML classes because of the scholarships they received, a new electric riding mower to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, roofs and walls repaired or replaced, new inflatable boats that keep our operations possible and safe, and commitments for new items that will make life more comfortable on the island.  Our researchers are generous with their time in training people who want to learn techniques, sharing their research plans and results, and contributing to the knowledge about the marine environment and potential changes over time. Our collaborators, particularly the UNH Marine Docents, help spread the word about how special our history, island, activities, and community are.  All summer long I am reminded of the impacts that the Lab has had on people’s lives and how many people contribute to the island in so many ways.

 

I can’t believe it has been two years since I accepted the position of Executive Director of the Shoals Marine Lab.  It was a hard decision to leave Canisius, my academic home for more than a quarter of a century, and the Buffalo area where my family had set down roots.  However, I am truly grateful that I am now here in this position and that every day I am surrounded by people who share a passion for the same thing—the Shoals Marine Lab and its mission focused on experiential education, research, community, and sustainability!

 

With sincere gratitude for the commitment, depth, and warmth of the entire Shoals community,

As we prepare for our Thanksgiving feasts, we are reminded of the special dinners that open and close each summer's season. We have a tradition of the entire staff going to dinner at Flatbreads in Portsmouth, NH, at the end of our first day of training for the new seasonal staff, thanks to the generosity and care of a long-time Shoals supporter who understands the value of the seasonal staff.

At the end of each season, when we all move off the island, we share a special dinner to celebrate a successful Shoals season with good friends, new and old. This year's celebration took place at the home of Garden Steward Terry Cook, but due to illness, he self-sequestered. His husband and UNH Marine Docent, Steve Yevich, stepped in as our host while Terry joined us from the second story window as “a voice from above.” (Please note Terry in the photo on the bottom right.)

With sincere gratitude for the amazing, hard-working, and fun 2025 seasonal staff, 

who began the season as strangers and became family!

Our academic team has been reviewing last year's feedback, touching base with Shoals faculty and scheduling courses, discussing syllabi, and actively recruiting undergraduate students. Our Shoals Undergraduate Research Group (SURG) program is being planned out, mentors being consulted, and schedules being mapped out. Web portals are getting updated, gussied up, and readied for posting. 

Photos: Dave Buck and Mike Sigler, Liz Craig, Eugene Won, 

SML staff have many moving parts to coordinate throughout the year, from boat lists, dorm assignments, meal planning, invoicing, student registrations, financial aid, maintenance tasks, internship applications, and many more. In the past, keeping track of it all has largely relied on various software that doesn't integrate, white boards, and many spreadsheets that need constant manual updating, not to mention the rare but occasional bout of human error. 

 

To improve our efficiency and quality, we are undergoing a long-term project to custom-build our own instance of Salesforce, a customer relationship management platform. Working with Synegen, a software integration builder, the team of permanent staff have been meeting regularly to analyze our processes, discuss our pain points, and work out solutions. This is a time-consuming process, but one that will hopefully earn us back much time and accuracy in the long term. 

 

When completed, this system will enable us to create public and custom programs and accept registrations, shepherd our students through the academic registration process, send waivers and reminders, manage our assets, such as boats and equipment, coordinate field trips and classroom usage, better track who is on the island at any time, and so much more. 

 

We are pleased to present the undergraduate course schedule for summer 2026. 

To inquire about any of these courses and begin the registration process with an academic advisor, please visit our Academics web page by clicking the button below. 

 

The schedule of college-level courses for high school students has also been finalized for 2026 and is viewable on our website. The application portal for high school students opens in February.

 

Photos provided by Riley Aquilino and Annie Chen

Although our island store is closed for the season, remember that we have an online store through our local vendor, Blue Dolphin, where you can shop for something special for yourself or someone else. Plan ahead, though, as turnaround for these on-demand
items is usually 2-3 weeks. 

 

Executive Director Sara Morris and Doug Nelson, advisor to Shoals on many art-related programs and AIR committee member, were recently invited to speak at the Portsmouth Atheneaum as part of their 2025 Lecture Series. The title was “Art History at the Isles of Shoals.” Their presentation introduced the audience to Shoals Marine Laboratory's programs of study as well as the artist-in-residence program.

 

Since poet and author Celia Thaxter hosted numerous creatives of the time in her famed salon, such as Childe Hassam, William Morris Hunt, and Appleton Brown, the island has long attracted those seeking inspiration from the raw beauty of the sea and rocky shores. Doug and Sara discussed a variety of notable Shoals artists and their work from the 19th and 20th Centuries.

 

To learn more about the Shoals Marine Lab artist-in-residence program, which opens for application on December 1, please click HERE.

Painting by Bill Paarlberg

It touches our salty hearts that many of you have provided the resources which ensure our students, scientists, and community have what they need to thrive on Appledore. Each one of our Wish List items comes from a need that our staff determines necessary to keep the island running. We asked and you delivered – we are thankful beyond words!  

 

If you are planning to make donations on Giving Tuesday, please consider

supporting the Shoals Marine Laboratory. Any donation you give will be counted toward our $6M for 60, to commemorate out 60th season. Thank you!

Shoals Marine Laboratory is jointly operated by the University of New Hampshire and Cornell University.

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