Guardians of the Great Lakes

As a research biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, he's on a mission to bring native fish species back to the Great Lakes. Think: lake trout, cisco and bloater — once abundant, now struggling to survive due to the invasive mussels and sediment buildup that have wrecked their habitats.

Gatch is even leading a lake-wide acoustic telemetry project (like fish GPS) to track where these species are still spawning and what they need to recover.

His path into fisheries science began at HWS, where he graduated magna cum laude in Biology and Environmental Studies, earning Honors in Biology under the mentorship of Professor Meghan Brown.

With support from the Bollettieri Family Scholarship and the Fred L. Emerson Foundation Scholarship, Gatch says he was able to pour his time into his Honors thesis instead of juggling extra jobs. His research, "Age and Size as Predictors of Mercury Accumulation in Lake Trout from the Finger Lakes," analyzed mercury levels in lake trout across Seneca, Cayuga and Canandaigua Lakes to help anglers make safer choices.

After graduating, Gatch went on to earn his M.S. in Fisheries Science from Purdue University. Today, that early investment is paying dividends in science, environmental restoration and a full-circle return to the waters where it all started.

From an undergraduate Honors thesis on the Finger Lakes to a federal research role on Lake Ontario, Gatch's career hasn't strayed far from the waters where it began. The species change. The questions get larger. But the through-line is the same: scientific evidence in service of recovery.