My name is Ella Crotty, a recent college graduate and lab volunteer at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and the Fall 2025 CalCOFI cruise was my first multi-day research cruise! I was aboard as a volunteer on the MOSAIC (MURI Ocean Sampling Across an Integrated Continuum) project, a project that uses environmental DNA (eDNA) to detect marine mammals along the route of the CalCOFI cruise.

Please join us for this year’s CalCOFI Conference 2026, A Decade of Remarkable Change: Heatwaves, HABs, Hypoxia, and Other Ocean Changes off the California coast, which will be held May 27th and 28th, 2026 at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography Seaside Forum, La Jolla, CA. The conference will happen in-person and will consist of keynotes, panels, contributed talks, posters, and discussions.

In November, I was invited to speak about my CalCOFI research on the Trophic Efficiency in Early Life Hypothesis at the 2025 PICES meeting in Yokohama, Japan. This talk was part of a session on “Applying Innovative and Established Approaches to Assess the Resilience of the Early Life Stages of North Pacific Fishes to Changing Oceanographic Conditions”.

In November 2025, I flew across the largest and deepest ocean on Earth and landed in Japan for a week of discovery and collaboration (and amazing food!) at the North Pacific Marine Sciences Organization (PICES) annual meeting. PICES promotes and coordinates marine research in the North Pacific. The conference brought together over 600 ocean professionals from across the North Pacific to explore Innovative Approaches and Applications to Foster Resilience in North Pacific Ecosystems.