Jennifer Potts
NOAA Beaufort Lab Oral Histories
Interviews with retired staff of NOAA Beaufort Lab, documenting their academic background, career path, research focus, and reflections on their work in the lab.
Jennifer Potts was born in Utica, NY, but moved at an early age to Oxford, NC. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Wildlife and Fisheries at North Carolina State University in Raliegh, NC, in 1988. After graduation from NCSU, Jennifer moved to Carteret County, NC. She was hired by the Reef Fish Program at NOAA’s Beaufort Laboratory in early 1989. Her initial duties for her supervisor, Dr. Charles Manooch, involved aging wreckfish, a deep-water grouper, utilizing the fish’s ear stones, or otoliths, as aging tools. While working at the Beaufort Laboratory, she enrolled in East Carolina University in Greenville, NC, and received her Master’s degree in 1992. Shortly thereafter, Jennifer assumed supervision of the Reef Fish Program’s age and growth team. During her thirty-four-year career at the Beaufort Laboratory, Jennifer was responsible for age-and-growth analyses of over two dozen marine fish species from the snapper-grouper complex in the U.S. South Atlantic. Major studies involved such species as black seabass, red porgy, vermilion snapper, and gray triggerfish. Jennifer retired from federal service in 2023.
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