Skip to main content

Collaborators

Nick O’Connor

RIOS Intern

A person in a short sleeve shirt and a hat wearing a backpack holding a horseshoe crab next to a marsh.

Nick was a NSF RIOS intern with the group in Summer 2025. He is pursuing a bachelor's degree at the University of Rhode Island as a double major in Marine Biology and Aquaculture & Fisheries Science. Nick is researching the change in fish densities and assemblages at fixed gradients, utilizing camera-mounted chevron traps at artificial reef sites. Specifically, spatiotemporal changes in abundance for structure-associated species, such as black sea bass (Centropristis striata), but also other demersal finfish like sea robins (Prionotus sp.) and smooth dogfish (Mustelus canis). Nick’s broader interests lie in understanding the impacts that anthropogenic change is having on fish populations and in related fishery survey techniques.

Chase Wunder

Graduate Fellow

A man with glasses and a hat in the ocean on a boat

Chase Wunder graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Marine Biology from the University of Delaware in 2021, and is currently the Margaret A. Davidson Graduate Fellow at the Jacques Cousteau National Estuarine Research Reserve while pursuing a Master’s in Ecology and Evolution at Rutgers University. Chase’s primary research interests involve the processes that influence the movement ecology and migration patterns of ecologically and commercially important fishes that seasonally inhabit coastal estuaries. Through electronic tagging methods he is tagging and tracking summer flounder in New Jersey estuaries and the ocean to examine life history variation and its relation to environmental cues. This research is highly collaborative and involves local recreational and commercial fisherman, regional biologists, and partnering institutions.

Nicole Fox

Graduate Associate

A person on a boat wearing waterproof overalls and flotation device smiling and holding a fish

Nicole worked for the lab in the summer of 2023, where she primarily supported ongoing non-extractive optical surveys in addition to monthly monitoring of oyster stocks in the Delaware Bay. She went on to accept a Laboratory Technician position at the Rutgers University Marine Field Station in September of 2023, and in the fall of 2024, she started in the Ecology and Evolution PhD program in the Grothues Lab at Rutgers University. Her research is focused on understanding predator-prey interactions of commercially important finfish and improving the effectiveness of applied diet analysis as a tool in ecosystem-based fisheries management. 

Jason Morson

Associate Research Scientist

A person with a hat on holding a fish on a boat

Jason worked as an Associate Research Scientist at the Rutgers University Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory. Morson has conducted cooperative research with commercial and recreational fishing industry members and stakeholders in New Jersey and throughout the Mid- Atlantic region for over a decade. This has included collaborating with fishermen to conduct applied research on summer flounder, black sea bass, sea scallops, surf clams, and oysters. Morson is the lead stock assessment scientist for the New Jersey Delaware Bay oyster stock assessment and has expertise in several relevant fields including fishery-independent survey design and analysis, fisheries ecology and stock assessment modeling. Morson co-lead the bottom trawl and structured habitat survey of the Ørsted Ocean Wind 1 fisheries monitoring plan. Jason joined the NEFSC in 2024 as the Hook & Line Survey Lead with the Cooperative Research Branch.