Workshops

Ontario Underwater: Freshwater Fishes of the Great Lakes

Mary Burridge is an Assistant Curator of Ichthyology in the Department of Natural History. She teaches the Ontario Fish Identification Workshop and is a contributing editor to ROM magazine. She also works with the large collection of fishes at the ROM and manages the frozen fish tissue collection, which is becoming increasingly important for molecular research. Mary is a co-author of the fourth book in the ROM field guide series, The ROM Field Guide to the Freshwater Fishes of Ontario, which has just been published.

Evan Hessels, BSc in Biology, is currently in his second year of the master's program at the University of Toronto (UofT). Guided by Dr. Nathan K. Lujan, the ROM’s curator of fish, Evan's research uses environmental DNA metabarcoding to understand the spread of freshwater fish diversity in Ecuador, crucial for informed conservation initiatives. Evan is currently the Teaching Assistant for the Diversity of Fishes course at UofT and he often assists with fish identification for the ROM’s collection. Evan expresses his passion for biodiversity through photography, and he especially enjoys using the iNaturalist and eBird platform to document his findings.