Research Interests:
Ann Willow Jorgenson, who goes by her middle name Willow, graduated from the University of Washington with a Bachelor of Science in Biological Oceanography. Her senior thesis was "Vertical migration and the ecological role of the hydromedusa Aglantha digitale in the plankton community of Dabob Bay, Puget Sound, Washington". Upon graduation she was chosen for a research apprenticeship at Friday Harbor Laboratories, where she studied pelagic ecosystem function in the San Juan Archipelago. Her research focused on abundance, distribution and energetic contribution of marine diatoms (Coscinodiscus spp) during fall. She presented her finding at the Mary Gates Undergraduate Research Symposium. Upon completion of the apprenticeship she traveled to Costa Rica to study tropical ecology and conservation. She took this opportunity to look at bromeliad arthropod diversity in a regenerating pasture adjacent to a tropical montane forest.
Willow is currently a second year graduate student working with Dr. Leslie Watling in the zoology department and Dr. Petra Lenz at the Pacific Bioscience Research Center, University of Hawaii. She is interested in molecular ecology of marine organisms. Willow is funded by Sea Grant and is focusing her dissertation research on copepod recruitment in Kaneohe bay following storm events.