Assistant Professor Shawn Arellano recently reunited with three former classmates who all got their start in the marine sciences at Western’s Shannon Point.
All four spent a summer at Shannon Point in the Multicultural Initiative in the Marine Sciences: Undergraduate Participation or MIMSUP program, whose emphasis on immersive research and student cohorts is now part of Western’s new Marine and Coastal Sciences Program. The two programs also share a goal: to introduce students to the marine sciences.
All four were young women of color interested in the marine sciences, but hadn’t realized they could become marine scientists themselves—until spending several weeks in Anacortes at Western’s Shannon Point Marine Center.
“Shannon Point was definitely the springboard for where I am now,” says Letise LaFeir, a MIMSUP alum who’s now a senior advisor at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “By the end, I was like, ‘I got it. I know what I’m doing next.’”