Jack Stafford stood knee-deep in the gurgling Gibbon River in Yellowstone National Park as water dripped from the grayling he had caught on a fly.
“I was standing there in this beautiful river holding this rare and beautiful fish with the sun shining on the hills and meadows and I thought, ‘This is pretty great’,” he said.
Stafford, an undergraduate fisheries management student from Harrison decided then that a career in fisheries biology may be worth pursuing.
While studying at University of Idaho’s College of Natural Resources, Stafford secured a grant from INBRE — the Idea Network of Biomedical Research Excellence. The group’s purpose includes funding projects that promote public health.
Stafford’s U of I curriculum and research are outdoor focused, and not usually associated with white lights and lab coats, but the INBRE grant will help pay for his work on two research projects in Chris Caudill’s lab in the College of Natural Resources.
