Vanessa Smith Email & Phone Number

Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada

• Undertaking fish and fish habitat field assessments• Conducting and managing field programs• Preparing permit applications, proposals and professional reports• Preparing fish and fish habitat environmental impact assessments for a diverse clientele• Interpreting environmental legislation and preparing technical summaries• Conducting research projects for wildlife and fisheries management studies

Vancouver, Canada Area

• Conducting field sampling for Phase II and II Environmental Site Assessments, often at harbours and remote contaminated sites• Gaining experience in a range of sampling methodologies for contaminated site assessments including: o Sampling groundwater, pore water, soil, sediment, and surface water, collecting plant and animal tissue, and conducting environmental monitoring and GPS surveying• Coordinating site visit logistics, field equipment, and creating health & safety plans • Working as an Environmental Monitor on construction projects under federal jurisdiction

•Designing and undertaking terrestrial and aquatic wildlife and habitat surveys following Resource Inventory Standards Committee (RISC) protocols•Compiling, analyzing, synthesizing and incorporating past and current biophysical survey results into the 6th year renewal of the State of the Park Report for the Ecological Integrity of Stanley Park

Performing duties associated with the Sylix First Nation’s Sockeye Reintroduction Program• Seining and collecting salmon eggs and milt as broodstock for rearing and release• Worked directly with First Nations communities and gained insight into the ecological issues facing Aboriginal peoples

Assisting Habitat, Fisheries and Wildlife programmes• Completing assessments of habitat and both fish and wildlife populations• Participating in wetland amphibian inventories• Conducting hydrometric field measurements and summary statistics• Entering, compiling, and summarizing data in standard technical reports• Assessing data using GIS to provide information to clients• Identifying streams under the Water Sustainability Act• Monitoring fish populations including white sturgeon • Accessing remote field sites by 4WD vehicles and by foot• Gill-netting, taking fish length measurements and collecting otolith and scale samples

Aided the development of an integrated crop pollination system designed for blueberry crops• Collected data in laboratory and field settings in a timely and accurate manner• Worked as a team to complete field and lab research duties • Assisted in set-up of experiments, data collection and data entry • Conducted vegetation surveys and pollinator observations• Gained plant, pollen and insect identification knowledge

Applied conservation genetics to manage Kokanee Salmon in Okanagan Lake• Designed and set-up experiment using TaqMan SNP Genotyping assays to differentiate between stream-spawning and shore-spawning salmon• Presented and discussed results in thesis using scientific writing skills• Presented findings at Irving K. Barber Undergraduate Research Conference• Extensively used pipetting skills and performed DNA extractions and PCR

Developed and executed research project on the Invasive Eastern Grey Squirrel• Used writing skills to create a project proposal for an interdisciplinary audience and successfully received a competitive research award• Conducted independent field work in adverse weather conditions• Meticulously collected and entered data from feeding trial experiments into MS Excel• Organized observations into written report • Presented project at Irving K. Barber Undergraduate Research Symposium

• Demonstrated strong leadership skills by supervising volunteers daily• Assisted and organized event and program delivery with partnering organizations• Connected the public with nature and provided information about local ecology