By Chris Patrick, staff writer
Names aren’t always meaningful, but Sam Lake’s last name is pretty apropos.
“I always knew I had a passion for marine science,” Lake says. Growing up in landlocked southwestern Ohio, Lake remembers being fascinated by the beach on family trips. He got certified to scuba dive at the age of 13 and vividly recalls his first dive in Florida.
“The first time I dove in that water and could just see all the different types of fish, the beauty, the complexity of the ecosystems—I think that’s what really captivated me,” he says. “I wanted to know how the systems worked and how we could sustain such a wealth of diversity and biomass and beauty.”
Now a certified Divemaster, Lake has been hooked on marine science ever since. His passion led him to a bachelor’s in marine science and biology with a minor in chemistry from Coastal Carolina University and a doctorate in marine science from Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS). Although he never focused on lakes, Lake gained diverse research experience during his academic trajectory. He studied subjects such as sharks, low-oxygen “dead zones” in South Carolina and Virginia, and developed management-relevant water quality models.
On Monday, January 11, Lake joined Virginia Sea Grant as the fellowship and research program coordinator. He will be responsible for coordinating fellowship programs and research grants, taking over some of Associate Director Susan Park’s duties as she prepares to leave Virginia Sea Grant in late January.
“It’s a dream job,” says Lake. “I’m most excited to engage with the fellows.”
Lake has enjoyed working with students since undergrad, when he first began collaborating with local high school teachers as part of a South Carolina Sea Grant-funded project called Rising Tide. As a graduate student and postdoc at VIMS, he worked as a teaching assistant and was a National Science Foundation GK12 Fellow twice.
“My favorite thing about education is watching students grow,” says Lake. “At Sea Grant I look forward to finding ways for students to take the research that they’re working on beyond the paper they might publish or a conference, and actually develop something or make connections where the science that they’re doing is going to be used by the local partners.”
This process—linking research with local partners—is a big deal to Lake: “I like working at the interface of science and stakeholders, facilitating connections between research and the local communities that can directly benefit from the research.”
Lake has worked at this interface in the past. As a post-doctoral researcher at VIMS, he developed water quality models to determine how upland watersheds, local municipalities, and Department of Defense installations affect adjacent coastal ecosystems. He used data from local stakeholders to develop ecosystem models, and then provided the same stakeholders with an online version of the model so they could carry out their own management-focused simulations.
Today, Lake and his family spend time together outdoors. He mountain bikes, climbs, and hikes with his three-year-old daughter and plans to do the same with his one-year-old son when he’s old enough. Lake also likes kiteboarding—though not with his toddlers in tow. When he goes kiteboarding and sees the animals swimming below, he says he experiences the same childhood wonder he felt on his first dive.
