Brynn Miller (she/her) grew up in Montana and graduated from Montana State University with a BS in Fish & Wildlife Ecology and Management. She has studied Mexican Spotted Owls in Arizona, trout population dynamics in the Ruby river, assisted in research measuring occupancy rates of Great Grey Owls across southwest Montana, and most recently conducted avian audio and visual surveys across the Great Basin region of Idaho. Brynn looks forward to the opportunity to grow as an ecologist in a new environment and work with her first marine mammal (the wonderful Weddell seal!)

Collette Webb (she/her) grew up in Fort Collins, CO, and earned her degree in environmental science from Western Washington University. She has worked as a wildlife technician for the past 2.5 years, contributing to research on a wide range of species—from carnivores in Utah to passerines in Hawaii. Her most recent project involved working with white-tailed ptarmigan in the Colorado alpine. In Antarctica, she is most looking forward to interacting with Weddell seals and gaining insight into their unique way of life.

Nate Jourdonnais (he/him) headed to the ice of McMurdo Sound from Missoula, Montana. Nate has primarily worked on ungulate research projects in collaboration with Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks and the University of Montana across the state. Some of his favorite past projects include an elk predator-prey relationship adaptive management project and a bighorn sheep project, both based in Northwest MT. Nate worked on the Weddell Seal research team previously in 2023 as a technician and is looking forward to another season of fun, hard work in the beautiful but harsh continent of Antarctica.

Natalie Storm (she/her) is from Sacramento, California and graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz with a Marine Biology B.S. Natalie fell in love with marine mammal research and field biology after taking an undergraduate field course studying northern elephant seals at Año Nuevo Reserve in California. Since then, she has assisted with rescue and rehabilitation efforts of seals and sea lions along the central California coast, collected mark-recapture data of uniquely tagged California sea lions on Año Nuevo Island, and continued to be a part of the UC Santa Cruz elephant seal research program. Natalie is excited to take a short break from her field technician position with the Beltran Lab at UC Santa Cruz to dive into Weddell Seal research, learn how to drive a snow machine, and experience life at McMurdo Station!

Thomas Hull (he/him) graduated from Montana State University in 2024 with a degree in Conservation Biology and Ecology. He dreamed of going to McMurdo after hearing about the Weddell seal project during a class presentation his freshman year, and he is very excited to work in such a unique environment. He is also very excited to work with mammals for the first time; his previous technician jobs have included trapping sage-grouse in the Great Basin, nest searching in giant sequoia groves, and conducting surveys for western yellow-billed cuckoos.

Parker Levinson (she/her) is a PhD student with Jay Rotella at Montana State University. Her current research focuses on the drivers behind the apparent population increase in the Erebus Bay Weddell seal population and what this increase might mean for the future of the population. This will be her seventh season in Antarctica, and she is most looking forward to the new snowmobiles provided by the United States Antarctic program.  

Dr. Jay Rotella (not shown) is a professor at Montana State University, where he’s been teaching and conducting research on animal population dynamics since 1992. He has worked on a variety of animal species including elk, bighorn sheep, mountain goats, white sharks, pallid sturgeon, trout, and various species of birds. He has been working on Weddell seals since 2002 and is excited to see what the team can learn in what looks to be a very interesting 2025 field season.

Dr. Nancy Chen (not shown) grew up in sunny Southern California. She received her Ph.D. from Cornell University and did some additional training at the University of California, Davis before becoming a professor at the University of Rochester (back in upstate NY) in 2018, and she is moving back to Los Angeles a month after getting back from Antarctica. Research in her lab focuses on the genomic basis of contemporary evolution in natural populations. Her research integrates genomics and long-term demographic studies (like the Weddell seal project!) to characterize the evolutionary processes shaping patterns of variation across the genome through space and time and to link genetic variation to variation in individual phenotypes, fitness, and eventually population dynamics. She is super excited to see a Weddell seal in person (after staring at their genomes for years) and to learn more about the biology and natural history of these animals!

– Prepared by Parker Levinson, PhD Student and 2025 Field Team Leader