The Team
Program Lead
Helen Gurney-Smith, PhD
Research Scientist, Health and Husbandry Research Program
Dr. Helen Gurney-Smith is a Research Scientist and Manager at the Centre for Shellfish Research at Vancouver Island University, and has led the Shellfish Health and Husbandry Group since coming to Canada in 2007. She has a PhD in Marine Ecology (University of St Andrews, UK), a Masters of Research in Bioprocessing (University College London, UCL), and a Joint Honours BSc in Marine Biology and Biochemistry. Her current shellfish health research includes the development and application of genomic tools and resources to examine the health and resilience of coastal marine ecosystems to anthropogenic change (climate change and pollution), using shellfish as indicator species. Recent husbandry projects include the multi-stage development of native basket cockles as a potential aquaculture species, genetic population assessments, integrative multi-trophic aquaculture research and broodstock development. She is a current Canada Research Chair Nominee in Ecosystem Health and Resilience. Her research involves partnerships with governmental, academic, industry and First Nations groups both nationally and internationally.
Research Interests
Developing genomic resources and tools for ecosystem health assessments
Examining the impacts of known and emerging pollutants of marine concern (including microplastics and wastewater)
Impacts of climate change on ecosystem health and resilience at multiple trophic levels (ocean acidification, global warming)
Development of native species for aquaculture development
Aquaculture and fisheries genetic assessments and broodstock development programs
Marine environmental monitoring
Multi-trophic aquaculture systems
Regulatory research
Education
1999 - 2003
PhD, University of St. Andrews, Scotland
1997 - 1998
Master of Research (MRes), Bioprocessing, U.C.L.
1994 - 1997
Joint Hons Biochemistry & Marine Biology, University of Wales, Bangor
Research Associate
Catherine Thomson,
Post-doctoral Research Fellow, VIU Sessional Instructor
Research Assistants
Kayla Mohns, BSc
VIU/Hakai Research Assistant
Kayla graduated from the VIU Bachelor of Science Degree in 2014 and from the Fisheries and Aquaculture Technical Diploma in 2011. She worked as a work-op student at the International Centre for Sturgeon Studies (ICSS) from 2010-2014, where her primary role was to assist researchers, culture and monitor health of the captive white sturgeon, and maintain recirculated aquaculture systems. From 2012-2013, she conducted a FISH 491 undergraduate research project with Dr. Sarah Dudas to investigate how changing bivalve species and densities affected their benthic habitat in both lab and field treatments. In 2014, Kayla received an NSERC USRA with Dr. Helen Gurney-Smith and worked on genotyping aquaculture shellfish populations, as well as several other molecular projects. Kayla has a passion for photography as well as enjoying the outdoors. She also has experience working with hagfish and conducting stream assessments. Kayla currently works as a Hakai/VIU Research Assistant, funded by the Tula Foundation, and assists both Sarah and Helen with ecological and molecular based research projects.
Monique Raap, BSc
VIU Research Assistant
Monique has worked in molecular biology labs since the early 1990’s. While completing her Co-op BSc degree in Biochemistry and Microbiology ( ’93) at the University of Victoria (UVic ) she worked in research labs at UVic, at the BC Centre for Disease Control in Vancouver BC, and at the Biotechnology Research Institute-NRC in Montreal, QUE. In 1995 Monique joined the Molecular Genetics Lab at the Pacific Biological Station (PBS) in Nanaimo and was an integral part of the fish genotyping team until 2008. She was instrumental in the development of the lab’s world renowned microsatellite base line for salmon stock identification. Monique also developed genetic assays and validated microarray data with Dr. K. Miller. Working with Dr. V. Funk she isolated and characterized a cathepsin gene from the fish pathogen Kudoa thyrsites and developed a Real-Time Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-QPCR) assay for the detection of K. thyrsites in Atlantic salmon. She implemented procedures for Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) assays and in 2007 attended “Applications of SNP Genotyping in Fisheries Management” meeting in Girdwood, Alaska. She has worked in virology for Dr. K. Garver at the PBS performing QPCR assays for Infectious hematopoietic virus and has performed consulting work for North Island Laboratories, Courtenay, BC, assessing the feasibility of PCR techniques for confirmation of vibrio haemolyticus organisms in oysters. She is currently ‘happy as a clam at high tide’ to be working for Dr. Helen Gurney-Smith.
Tamara Russell, BSc
VIU Research Assistant
Tamara is born and raised on Vancouver Island, and has become completely filled with awe and respect for the ocean realm with which she was privileged to have a relationship with growing up. She graduated from a BSc Fisheries and Aquaculture in 2015 from VIU, where she completed her undergraduate thesis on the diel migration of the fish killing algae, Heterosigma akashiwo. She spent the summer of 2012 working for Dr. Diana Varela at UVic’s Polar Phytoplankton Physiology Lab; and in 2013, she was awarded the High North Fellowship, which allowed her to study marine biology in Arctic Norway at the University of Nordland for half a year. That summer she worked cataloguing marine mammal data for Heike Vester at Ocean Sounds in the stunning Lofoten archipelago and started her position with Nicky Haigh at the Harmful Algae Monitoring Program in Nanaimo, BC where she has been fuelling her passion for algae since. One of the activities she looks forward to most of all each year is spending each June as a technician for the Parasitology Research Group of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology under the supervision of Dr. Martin Kalbe, where they do fish necropsies, and be merry in the lovely Sayward Valley on Vancouver Island. Tamara is excited to be working for SeaOmics with Dr. Helen Gurney-Smith in conjunction with the Tula Foundation and the Hakai Institute as their plankton specialist. As she says, “I’m just a girl who loves algae.”
VIU Students
Caitlin Smith
NSERC USRA Recipient (2014, 2015, 2016)
Caitlin Smith is a fourth year student majoring in biology in the Bachelor of Science program at Vancouver Island University. She received an NSERC USRA with Helen Gurney-Smith in the summer of 2014 and worked on genomic studies of local blue mussels and looked at the impacts of climate change on food webs and aquaculture practices. She received the same award again this year, and is incorporating her NSERC work into her Biology 491 project, looking at the impacts of ocean acidification on the immune response of mussels on Quadra Island. Caitlin is originally from Prince Rupert, BC and is of Haida ancestry, and plans to work on the north coast after graduation. She has also played piano since the age of seven, and started out in the classical music program at VIU before switching her major to biology in 2011.
