Bio

Heather joined the Raby Lab in January 2023 as a PhD student.  Her research focuses on intraspecific variation in fish physiology and behaviour in the context of climate change. Through lab- and field-based studies, she aims to explore how individuals and populations differ in their responses to anthropogenic stress in order to inform management and conservation. She is currently comparing the metabolism and thermal tolerance of pumpkinseed populations with different life history patterns, and future projects will include the use of telemetry data to explore fish habitat use in multiple lakes.

 

Prior to joining the Raby Lab, Heather spent a year as the Aquatic Monitoring Coordinator at ACAP Saint John in New Brunswick. In this role she coordinated baseline monitoring in the Saint John Harbour and contributed to other projects including marine food web contaminant studies, microplastics research, and terrestrial restoration.

 

Heather completed her MSc in 2021 at McGill University, where she worked in Tony Ricciardi’s lab studying the effects of climate change on invasive fish species. For her main project she examined variation in thermal tolerance and feeding behaviour of round goby across a latitudinal gradient within the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence River system.

 

Heather received her BSc in Environmental Sciences from the University of British Columbia in 2018. During her undergraduate degree, Heather completed the 16-month Science Co-op Work Experience Program. As part of this program, she reared juvenile oysters at an oyster hatchery, examined the effects of oil sands process water on mayflies with Environment and Climate Change Canada, and led part of a salt marsh restoration project with the University of New Brunswick. In her final year at UBC she undertook an independent research project in Chris Harley’s lab to explore the thermal tolerance and microhabitat use of an intertidal gastropod in winter. She also completed an internship at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences in the summer of 2018 studying invasive lionfish.

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Publications

Diesbourg, E., MacDonald, M., Reid, H. B., MacKinnon, R., Reinhart, B., Crémazy, A. 2023. State of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) contamination in the Saint John Harbour, New Brunswick, Canada. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 189: 114760.

 

Reid, H. B., Ricciardi, A. 2022. Ecological responses to elevated water temperatures across invasive populations of the round goby (Neogobius melanostomus) in the Great Lakes basin. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 79(2): 277-288.

 

Reid, H. B., Harley, C. D. G. 2021. Low temperature exposure determines performance and thermal microhabitat use in an intertidal gastropod (Littorina scutulata) during the winter. Marine Ecology Progress Series 660: 105-118.

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Selected Awards

NSERC Canada Graduate Scholarship (2023 – 2026)
 

Best MSc Oral Presentation Award (International Conference on Aquatic Invasive Species; 2022)
 

Québec Centre for Biodiversity Science Excellence Award (McGill University; 2019)
 

Canadian Associates of the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences Scholarship (2018)
 

Joan le Nobel Prize in Environmental Sciences (University of British Columbia; 2018)