Fall graduate is first PhD in Marine Institute’s 58-year history

For Tomás Araya Schmidt, a 2013 summer internship at the largest flume tank in the world set him on a path to becoming the Marine Institute’s first PhD graduate

Tuesday, October 18, 2022

At the time, he was in the final year of his bachelor degree in fisheries science and engineering at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso in Chile.

“I spent three months with the Marine Institute’s Centre for Sustainable Aquatic Resources (CSAR), helping with the flume tank testing and building fishing gear, and then I returned to Chile to complete my degree.”

He also made plans to return to Newfoundland and Labrador.

“For what I do as a fisheries technologist, if you want to be at a good place it’s here at the largest flume tank in the world,” he said. “I worked in Chile to learn a little bit more, to save some money, get married and come back here with my wife, Constanza. That was always the plan – to come back. Things are much better here in terms of research and what I do, so we ended up staying.”

On Thursday, Oct. 20, he will receive his doctorate in fisheries science during fall convocation at the St. John’s Arts and Culture Centre.

Learn more in the Gazette.