Benjamin Gallo

“If something fails, you can’t give up—it just means you have to try harder,” says Ben Gallo, a marine, estuarine, and freshwater biology major and member of the University of New Hampshire Honors Program from Windham, New Hampshire. While conducting research for his Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF), trying harder meant waking up at two or three in the morning to board the boats of the fishermen he worked with. Hard work pays off. Ben gained the respect of the fishermen and became somewhat of an expert on the life history of spiny dogfish. An avid fisherman himself, Ben wants to expand our working knowledge of how to sustain fisheries for future generations. Writing for Inquiry has helped Ben work toward becoming a recognized part of the fisheries research community and, in particular, expanding the Seacoast community’s knowledge about the local fishing industry. He will continue working toward those goals after graduating in May 2017 by attending graduate school to pursue a master’s in fisheries biology. It looks to be a rewarding journey. As Ben says, you see a lot when you’re on the water: “Whether it be sharks and whales in the salt or bald eagles and trout on the streams, you never know what you are going to see, and that mystery is what drives me as a scientist.”