Academic Program Manager Turns Field Research Data into Crocheted Art

Everett is the academic program manager for the vast U-M research and teaching campus located in Pellston on more than 10,000 forested acres along Douglas Lake and Burt Lake. It’s about 20 miles south of the Mackinac Bridge.

UMBS is a living laboratory and a historic source of information about how ecology and climate in northern Michigan have changed over the last century.

Based in the Ann Arbor office during the fall and winter semesters, Everett lives a split life.

She moves into a lakeside cabin from mid-May through early-August every year in Pellston where she leads the organization and administration of field-based courses and helps undergraduate students and faculty have successful spring and summer terms immersed in nature. Each term is four weeks long, with students having one day off a week.

“Candice brings this combination of laid back, funny, but tough to the job, which makes her highly effective and loved by the students and researchers alike,” said Dr. Aimée Classen, director of the U-M Biological Station. “Her planning, organizational and problem-solving superpowers are a great match for this paradise of place-based learning.”

When UMBS hired Everett in February 2023 to manage the academic side of operations, she anticipated quiet nights at her lakeside cabin when the time came in the spring to temporarily move up north for the field season.

In particular, she saw an opportunity to capture her experience through a "temperature blanket"—a project that records each day's temperatures in colored yarn, using UMBS air sensor data collected by Adam Schubel, the field station’s resident biologist who lives in Pellston year-round.

“I wanted something that represented my time here,” Everett said, “and I had previously made a temperature blanket at home during COVID. I thought, why not do something like that? I love data. Being able to leverage data in my craft, I thought, would be a perfect combination during my time at the field station, especially since it’s the home of historic datasets than span generations of research by students and faculty.”

Crochet is a method of creating fabric by interlocking loops of yarn with a single hooked needle, a unique process where a single thread is formed into fabric, unlike weaving which interlaces two sets of yarn.

Everett learned how to crochet as a child from her grandmother on her mother’s side.

“I come from a very creative family,“ Everett said. “Lots of woodworkers and people who work with their hands to create. My grandma taught me to crochet. And then I didn't touch it for a really long time. I took up knitting for a while and then got kind of frustrated with knitting. When you make mistakes in knitting, it's a little bit harder to correct your errors. I decided to go back to crochet during the early 2000s.”

Everett’s projects at the field station have ranged from single-row blankets to ambitious granny square afghans. She wears her own hand-made shawls at the office, both in Ann Arbor and Pellston, drawing admiration from her colleagues.

“Candice is an incredible artist with a lot of flair,” said UMBS Operations Specialist Jumanah Saadeh. “She picks out her designs and color schemes with intentionality, with an eye for color that is truly special. She's also very inclusive in her creative process, giving sneak peaks that build the anticipation towards the final product.”

During Everett’s first field season in 2023, she made a full-size blanket that recorded the high temperatures of each day she was at the U-M Biological Station.

From low to high, the color palette chosen in advance of move-in day included seven colors: whipped cream (0-59 degrees), hazelwood (60-64 degrees), sepia rose (65-69 degrees), desert sand (70-74 degrees), dark cherry (75-79 degrees), cinnamon stick (80-84 degrees), and sunshine (85-89 degrees).

The next year she increased the data and workload.

In the spring and summer of 2024, Everett incorporated squares and doubled the color palette, including shades of blue and green, to record both the high and the low temperature of each day at UMBS.

“I was feeling a little ambitious. I wanted to do a granny square quilt or afghan, but I didn't want to do a traditional granny square,” Everett said. “I looked for a more modern pattern, and then I looked for something that would be easy to modify so that I could represent both the high and low temperature each day. I chose a color palette that would allow the high and low temp colors to work together.”

Before move-in day, she worked out the size of each square so the finished blanket would fit a full-size bed both in her UMBS cabin and in a guest bedroom at her home.

Everett also chose a light gray border that would tie it all together.

“That was a bit trickier to keep up with because creating each square took a little bit more time,” Everett said. “And joining all of those individual squares was sometimes awkward. I had to lay them out on my bed and sit in weird positions to roll it and manipulate it. But I love looking at it now. It’s like a little photo album.”

The second blanket took about three semesters to complete — extending beyond the field season.

One square on the 2024 blanket that always catches her eye documents the one day that reached a high of 94 degrees — the only time she had to dip into the burgundy color of yarn. The low on that memorable mid-June day was 72 degrees, making the square a combination of burgundy and ocean (ocean looks like teal).

“Oh, the red day. The hottest day. Every time I look at the blanket, I remember what happened that day,” Everett said.

Then in 2025, Everett crocheted a temperature shawl. This time she returned to solely documenting each day’s high temperature. However, she kept the larger number of colors by reducing the temperature range for each color.

“I didn’t need another blanket,” Everett said. “I found a pretty pattern and decided to make something I could wear in the office when I'm cold, which happens a lot on Central Campus in the fall and winter semesters.”

The art of crocheting offers Everett relaxation, stress relief, and a sense of accomplishment.

“It brings me joy,” Everett said. “Most of the time I'd be rather be doing that than anything else. I love all the parts of it. I love planning it. I also love the doing. I feel like I've been doing it long enough that I can mostly anticipate some of the problems that I'm going to have before they happen. And I have friends that are also crocheters and knitters, and they have tips and tricks that they share too. Plus, the internet is a blessing for troubleshooting. I could pretty much do anything if I could watch somebody do it on YouTube.”

The calm nature, creativity, and planning prowess that Everett puts into her hobby are also assets that enhance her daily work as academic program manager at the largest of U-M’s campuses, especially at a critical time in the Biological Station’s history, which was founded in 1909.

The five-year Strategic Plan that UMBS launched at the start of 2025 makes it a priority to grow the number and diversity of student changemakers with hands-on experience in the environment. One of the goals is to develop fall and winter semester “Up North” student programming as year-round facilities come online. Essentially, expand undergraduate educational programming into the cold-weather seasons.

“Candice has been instrumental in our ability to dream about taking UMBS educational programs year-round and to think about how they should grow and change to maintain our reputation as the best place-based education an undergrad can get,” Classen said.

Everett has worked at U-M for nearly a decade. Prior to UMBS, she was a program specialist in the U-M Marsal Family School of Education, where she served as the first point of contact for Secondary Teacher Education programs.

Before joining U-M, Everett was a teacher in elementary and middle schools in Detroit. She taught all subjects for third graders; seventh and eighth grade math; and math and science for third and fourth grades.

Everett also has focused on empowering young women. She started her career at Alternatives for Girls, a nonprofit in Detroit that provides critical interventions and support for at-risk youth.

Everett holds a master’s degree in educational psychology from Eastern Michigan University (EMU), with a concentration in research and assessment. She earned a bachelor’s degree in women’s studies from EMU and a bachelor’s degree in resource policy and behavior from U-M. Her teaching certificate also is from EMU.

From her home this winter in southeastern Michigan, Everett is in the planning stages for her temperature blanket during the upcoming 2026 field season in northern Michigan.

Under consideration is a gender-neutral design to serve as a prize for the winner of the UMBS staff’s annual ice-out competition, where staff members guess the date each spring when 75% of ice cover is gone from South Fishtail Bay, the deepest part of the south end of Douglas Lake.

“Candice’s blankets are beautiful heirlooms,” said Chrissy Billau, who leads marketing and communications at UMBS. “Normally I just pick my birthday for the ice-out contest, but I’ll be putting more thought into my guess next time around if one of her blankets is on the line. I’d love to win one of her meaningful designs to snuggle under when I read a book at night and unwind in my cabin.”

The University of Michigan Biological Station serves as a gathering place to learn from the natural world, advance research and education, and inspire action. We leverage over a century of research and transformative experiences to drive discoveries and solutions to benefit Michigan and beyond.

Our vast campus engages all of the senses. Its remote, natural setting nurtures deep thought and scientific discovery.

Founded in 1909, UMBS supports long-term research and education through immersive, field-based courses and features state-of-the-art equipment and facilities for data collection and analysis to help any field researcher be productive. It is where students and scientists from across the globe live and work as a community to learn from the place.

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