Centralight

Mark Kaemingk Where he lives: New Zealand A word of warning about Mark Kaemingk, M.S. '09: if you're out fi shing and you see him approaching, he'll probably ask you to hand over one of your fi sh. Fish fascinate him. As a graduate student in conservation biology at CMU, he studied smallmouth bass while stationed at CMU's Biological Station on Beaver Island. Now he's in New Zealand for two years working on a postdoctoral project, studying New Zealand's iconic whitebait fi sh. His work is painstaking and challenging. He's studying the habits of tiny whitebait larvae after they head from freshwater out to sea. "Sampling larvae in the ocean is much like fi nding a needle in a haystack or even worse," Mark points out. Funded by a National Science Foundation grant, Mark is working to fi gure out how far out to sea the larvae go and what happens to them while they're out there. It involves microchemistry and stable isotope techniques and other sciencey stuff that makes a layman's eyes glaze over. "I realize every day how CMU prepared me for a career in science," Mark says – much of it from "the best master of science mentor a person could ask for, Tracy Galarowicz. She gave me an excellent example of how I should treat my students and conduct science." MARK'S TRAVEL TIP: While New Zealand's South Island is more popular, don't ignore the North Island, Mark says. There's scenery for everybody. "One minute we feel we're in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, the next it feels like Florida, and in some locations the plains of the Dakotas," he says. Mark and his wife, Amy, live in Wellington, a cosmopolitan city with a global feel and an obsession for coff ee. Don't miss the "fl at white," he says – a popular coff ee Wellington boasts as the best in the country. One last note: "If you're a 'Lord of the Rings' fan, this is a must-see destination," he says, as the popular movies were fi lmed there. 26 centralight spring '15

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