Reeling in the years: Alumna's dream job with Idaho Fish and Game started at OHIO

Emma Wanat, BS ’26, was on a bush plane flying into the South Fork Big Creek River in the central-southwest region of Idaho. Only a few months ago she was sitting in a biology lab on Ohio University’s Athens campus. But here she was now, living her dream. After majoring in wildlife and conservation biology, Wanat’s job working for Idaho Fish and Game takes her to far-flung places like the Frank Church Wildernes, the largest contiguous federally managed wilderness in the country outside of Alaska.

“I fly in by bush plane and sample fish in highly remote streams,” Wanat says. “It's a beautiful place and such a different ecosystem from southeastern Ohio. I've learned a lot about all of Idaho's wildlife, not just fish, because I am constantly surrounded by it for my job.”

Over the summer, Wanat’s job involved tending a trap that caught juvenile salmon on their way to the ocean. She took genetic samples and measurements and tagged the fish with devices called Passive Integrated Transponders, or PIT tags, which are tracking tags that don’t require batteries.

Wanat’s first hands-on experience with fish sampling was in Associate Professor Joseph Faber’s biology lab. She also gained experience as a research assistant in the fish lab run by Professor Emeritus Molly Morris, who describes Wanat as “an amazing part of the team.”

“At one point the colony was made up of around 1,000 fish,” Morris says about her lab. “As you can imagine, that is a lot of work and many undergraduates over the years have helped with maintenance.”

Building connections with faculty like Morris and Faber, Wanat developed fundamental skills including laboratory maintenance, statistical analysis and fish handling. She also explored topics beyond her academic requirements.

“Ichthyology with Dr. Faber included some of my favorite moments in the field during my undergrad,” she says. “Topics covered in that class included fish sampling, species identification and general life history of fishes, all of which helped tremendously for me to transfer into the seasonal role I am working now.”

Many of the classes Wanat enrolled in, including ichthyology, aquatic biology and marine biology, were not required for her major, but she took them because she says they sounded interesting. She recommends that other students do the same.

Wanat encourages students at OHIO to reach out to professors and ask about lab opportunities like she did. She researched campus labs and emailed the professors running those labs, who she said were responsive even if they didn’t have student jobs to offer.

“Professors at OHIO are happy to help guide you in the right direction to build experience outside of the classroom if the labs do not have open positions,” Wanat says,

Wanat’s gratitude for her time at OHIO was evident in an email she sent to Morris over the summer.

“I wanted to thank you for all of the lab experience I got in the year I worked in your lab,” she wrote. “The experiences I got from your lab have transferred over into this position amazingly. I'm not sure I'd have gotten this position if I didn't have fish lab experience under my belt.”