Portrait of Kerry-Ann Naish

Aquatic and Fishery Sciences

Kerry-Ann Naish

Professor and Director, Marine Biology

Kerry Naish, the director of UW Environment’s Marine Biology program, is well-traveled — even for a biologist. She was born in Zimbabwe, educated in South Africa and the United Kingdom, and now works in Seattle (with a quick detour to Canada). As an evolutionary geneticist, she uses genetic approaches to characterize the fitness of fish populations given their structure (i.e., is the population small or large?), and also to see how humans influence the evolution of certain traits. She is one of four faculty members in the Molecular Ecology Research Lab (MERLAB), which focuses on genetic research of aquatic animals. She mainly studies Pacific salmonids, but she also works on turtles in South Africa, and has in the past done projects on everything from Cape horse mackerel to invasive mussels to leatherback sea turtles.