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Oyster seed is about the size of a grain of quinoa when it goes into Narragansett Bay each spring. Whether it makes it to market can come down to something as simple as how deep its cage sits.

My guest spent a year and a half with sensors at the surface and bottom of the bay, plus six months raising oysters in three different kinds of farming gear, to figure out what’s actually happening down there. Some of what she found, one local farmer already knew in his gut. And if ocean acidification keeps you up at night, her story is more than worth a listen.

About Jacqueline Rosa

Jacque Rosa is a chemical oceanographer who finished her master’s in oceanography at the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography this past May. Her thesis, funded by Rhode Island Sea Grant, looked at water chemistry and cultivation methods at oyster farms in Narragansett Bay (Rhode Island’s largest estuary, and pretty much my backyard).

Jacque grew up in Connecticut and spent a lot of her childhood in Rhode Island, so coming to URI was a bit of a homecoming. Before grad school, she spent about ten years at marine science nonprofits and outdoor education organizations after finishing her undergrad at the University of Maine. She’s now at the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service lab on URI’s main campus, turning her thesis into a manuscript for an aquaculture journal.

If you’ve ever worried you waited too long to go back to school, she’s exactly who you want to hear from.

In this episode, we get into…

We covered a lot of ground (and a lot of water) in this one. A few highlights:

• Whether ocean acidification is showing up in Narragansett Bay, why Jacque says it’s so site-specific, and what it would take to turn the ship around

• What oceanography actually is — the four branches, and why Jacque says you can’t neatly separate each from the other

• How a URI magazine article and one cold email turned into a funded master’s project on Rhode Island oyster farms

• What an oyster “seed” actually is and how it gets from a hatchery to a farm (you’ll hear me realize my lack of knowledge on the topic in real time)

• The Narragansett Bay farmer who knew about a problem at his site long before any sensors hit the water, and what he did about it

• Which of three gear types lost the most oysters over six months, and the two culprits behind it (one of them is a snail with a very rude habit)

• Why Flip Farm, a New Zealand–designed system the manufacturer says can cut labor by up to 60%, has oyster farmers paying attention, and what Jacque’s data says about whether it’s worth the upfront cost

Lessons from My Chat with Jacque

Where an oyster sits in the water column really matters.

Depending on the season, the surface and the bottom of Narragansett Bay can be two very different places to grow up, and that has real consequences for farmers choosing between floating and bottom cages.

Jacque’s bigger point is that the best answers come when a farmer’s local knowledge and a scientist’s sensors work together, and she walks through why those two groups need to be talking a lot more. (Stakeholder engagement is my whole jam, so yes, I got a little excited here!)

The long way around isn’t the wrong way.

Jacque went back to school a full decade after her undergrad, and she’s clear that the skills she built in those years helped her succeed as a master’s student, not the other way around. As she puts it, “I encourage listeners, if they’re excited about research and want to go back to grad school, not to hesitate.” If you’re mid-career and eyeing a pivot, this part is for you.

Cold emails still work.

Jacque has sent a lot of cold emails and LinkedIn messages to people with her dream job, and they’ve paid off more often than you’d think. We get into why reaching out is worth the nerves, plus her case for something that sounds almost old-fashioned: actually reading the science.

And stick around for the very end, where Jacque shares what’s giving her hope for the ocean right now. It involves a lot more people (and a lot more voices) at the table, and it’s a lovely note to finish on.

Connect with Jacque

• Jacqueline Rosa on LinkedIn — she’s not on social media (honestly, respect), but she shares her research here

Links from the Episode

• URI Graduate School of Oceanography

• Rhode Island Sea Grant

• USDA Agricultural Research Service

• Flip Farm

• Flip Farm gear in action (video) — Jacque’s homework for all of us

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