Good morning!
The snowfall has been steady for weeks here in Pellston. Douglas Lake is frozen. Our first ice fisherman set up a shanty in South Fishtail Bay off the University of Michigan Biological Station shoreline.
It’s the time of year that a lot of us at UMBS enjoy curling up with hot cocoa and a good book. I have a few sweet treats for you in this month’s newsletter. But business first.
For students, researchers and artists, it’s open application season.
The 2026 course application is open for U-M, guest and international students. The lineup includes the return of historic favorites as well as the debut of three new courses: “Introduction to Data Science” with Dr. Mark Fredrickson from the U-M Department of Statistics, “Great Lakes Policy and Management” with Dr. Mike Shriberg from the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS), and “Michigan: People and Place in a Changing Climate” with Dr. Tim McKay from the U-M College of Literature, Science and the Arts (LSA). Please advise students in your network to plan their spring and summer now before courses fill up.
We’re also recruiting students to apply for Undergraduate Research Fellowships that include a $5,500 stipend and a research mentor for eight weeks.
It’s time for researchers to set themselves up for a successful field season in 2026 too. Submit new research proposals or renewals and fellowship applications by Feb. 1. You can find those research guidelines and forms on our UMBS website. I’m proud to report that in 2025 we welcomed 92 new researchers and 68 returning researchers to the station.
And last, but not least, we are sounding the call to artists around the world. No matter the medium, we offer a hearty invitation to apply to create works of art inspired by place-based research and nature while embedded at our vast, historic campus, immersed in the Northwoods. The deadline is Feb. 1. Find all of the details about our Artist in Residence program on the UMBS website.
In honor of this season of giving and gratitude, allow me to sprinkle you with comfort and joy.
The love and creative support for UMBS from partners across the University of Michigan is a wonder to behold.
Check out this must-watch video produced by a talented team in the U-M College of LSA featuring U-M Professor Marjorie Weber and her “Insights from Trees” class at UMBS this past summer (which, yes, is being offered for the third year in a row in July 2026). Nature helps us wake up and notice things, and this incredible class gives students the tools to truly open their eyes and their world. Plus, the story reveals a breath-taking bird’s eye view of our remote, beautiful campus!
I have another video for you. A crew from Michigan News in the Office of the Vice President for Communications also drove up to the Pellston campus this summer to feature the CLEAR Fellowship — founded by UMBS alumni from the 1970s — as part of the Michigan Stories series that highlights U-M’s impact in the state. We are proud of our long-standing partnership with the Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council and the students like Mira Hughes who make a difference protecting northern Michigan waters each year. Watch the video and read the story.
Congratulations to UMBS alumna Yumna Dagher on being named a Rhodes Scholar! Yumna took General Ecology Lab and Lecture courses at the campus in northern Michigan in the spring of 2023. Her innovative path advancing sustainability leadership makes all of us along Douglas Lake proud.
Humor me for a moment and imagine you’re hearing a drumroll. I’ve been waiting months to share this special gift. If you’re looking for a good book to read or a podcast to listen to or a movie to watch as we near the new year, I have a list curated by members of the UMBS community during the 2025 spring term. Here are recommendations that students, researchers, faculty and staff wrote on the whiteboard outside the dining hall in June:
- “Tooth and Claw” is a “podcast with a wildlife biologist, animal attacks and how to react or prevent the attack from happening.”
- “Bird Sense” by Tim Birkhead is a book about “what it’s like to be a bird.”
- “Firekeeper’s Daughter” by Angeline Boulley is a “mystery book set on Sugar Island by a local Indigenous author.” (A spring term resident also praised a second book by the author, titled “Warrior Girl Unearthed”.)
- “Parasite Rex” by Carl Zimmer is a “pop science book detailing how amazing parasites are, how they evolved, and how they impact ecology.”
- “Crow Talk” by Eileen Garvin is a fiction book about “an ornithologist in the Pacific Northwest trying to figure out her master’s thesis.”
- “Ever Green: Saving Big Forests to Save the Planet” by John Reid and Thomas Lovejoy is a non-fiction book focused on “why big forests are essential to be kept unfragmented.”
- Known as ZAMM, the full title of a book recommended by a UMBS community member is “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values” by Robert Pirsig. Published in 1974, it’s a fictionalized autobiography narrating a summer trip taken by a father and his son.
- The only movie on the list was “Hundreds of Beavers,” a 2022 comedy shot in Wisconsin and Michigan about a conflict involving beavers and an apple orchard.
I recently read “Everything is Tuberculosis” by John Green. It explores the history of TB and highlights how a deadly, but curable, disease has not been eradicated because of inequity and injustice. I found the story of Henry, a TB patient Green gets to know, really powerful.
Also, my lab group loves romance novels, especially academic romances. We recently finished “Academic Affair” by Jodi McAlister. I thought the inclusion of footnotes by one of the narrators was fun and an on-the-nose nerdy academic.
Chrissy Billau, who leads marketing and communications at UMBS, requested I share with you two of her favorite books she read this year: “Orbital” by Samantha Harvey and “The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth” by Zoë Schlanger. The latter gets extra stars from us because one of the featured researchers is an alumna of UMBS: Dr. Heidi Appel spent six summers at UMBS, both as a student and TA. Now the dean of the University of Houston’s Honors College, Heidi is internationally known for her research on the chemical ecology of plant-insect interactions. She holds doctoral and master’s degrees in biology from U-M.
If you’re not in the mood for a book, perhaps you want to press play on a new album inspired by this special place along Douglas Lake. You can listen to “UMBS” by 2025 Artist in Residence Ricardo Lyra on Apple Music, Spotify, iTunes or YouTube. Get those links and read a heartwarming Q&A with Ricardo in the UMBS news story.
Ricardo’s reflections on the search for reconnection, a sense of belonging, and what we all have in common resonated with me this week: “We forget that the iron in our blood came from the erosion of mountains, or that the air in our lungs comes from photosynthetic organisms. We are part of a closed system, as much as everything else we can hear, see, touch, or smell. We are made of the same elements that we think we are disconnected from. We are floating in space, living on a big rock that surprisingly hosts life.”
We are honored to have the privilege of stewarding and learning from these 10,000+ forested acres in this slice of heaven. From a sweeping, historic ice storm to individual moments of student success, 2025 has been one to remember.
From all of us at the field research station in northern Michigan, we send warm wishes to you and your family and look forward to another year of discovery, exploration and adventure in 2026.
Read the full December 2025 newsletter and view photos of the Pellston campus covered in 14 inches of snow.
Sincerely,
Dr. Aimee Classen
UMBS Director
