Linda Park
Voices from the Science Centers
Voices from the Science Centers is an oral history initiative dedicated to documenting the institutional knowledge of fisheries scientists and administrators in the labs of NOAA’s Fisheries Science Centers.
Linda Park is a research geneticist at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle, Washington. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in biological sciences and genetics from Cornell University and a PhD in population biology from Washington University in St. Louis. She has worked for NOAA for 26 years, and is currently the team leader of the molecular genetics laboratory.
Interview contains discussions of:Northwest Fisheries Science Center, environmental DNA, deep ocean organisms, functional genetic mapping, epigenetics genetics, molecular genetics, population biology, NOAA, NMFS, salmon genetics, technology, fieldwork, funding and government agencies.
In this interview, Linda Park discusses her path to becoming a geneticist with NOAA and gives an overview of her career. During her graduate work, she conducted research in one of the first labs to do molecular genetics for population biology. Her first post-doc position was in a Monterey lab studying rockfish. At NOAA, she has helped to establish a new molecular genetics program focused on DNA instead of proteins.
Park describes the incredible pace at which the field of genetics has progressed and how her lab has collaborated with other divisions in the agency. She also remarks on the increase in diversity that she’s seen since initially being hired.
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