biology

Kathleen Conlan

Kathleen Conlan is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Kathleen Conlan rather than just read about it. In short: Kathleen Elizabeth Conlan (born July 30, 1950) is an Antarctic marine biologist who studies sea floor marine life. She was named one of Canada's greatest explorers by Canadian Geographic.

Key takeaways

Kathleen Conlan belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Kathleen Conlan to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Kathleen Conlan from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Kathleen Elizabeth Conlan (born July 30, 1950) is an Antarctic marine biologist who studies sea floor marine life. She was named one of Canada's greatest explorers by Canadian Geographic.

Early life and education Conlan was born on June 30, 1950, in Ottawa, Ontario. She completed her undergraduate degree, a Bachelor of Science, at Queen's University in 1972, before undertaking a M.Sc. from the University of Victoria in 1977. Conlan completed her Ph.D. at Carleton University in 1988. The title of her Ph.D. thesis was "Systematics and sexual dimorphism: reclassification of the crustacean amphipod genus Jassa (Corophioidea: Ischyroceridae)." The inspiration for her to study both the Arctic and the Antarctic came from a pioneer Antarctic marine biologist, Dr. John Oliver, who was one of the early divers in the Antarctic. Conlan met Oliver through a colleague, and was invited to be part of his Antarctic research team in 1991. In return, Conlan invited his research team to begin studies in the Canadian Arctic. As a result, she is still studying ecological processes in both the Arctic and Antarctic, 25 years after they first began polar research.

Career and impact Conlan is currently a Research Scientist at the Canadian Museum of Nature. Her research focuses on communities of marine life on the sea floor of the Antarctic and Arctic and the impacts of natural or anthropogenic changes. Conlan's research has had significant impact. Her study of long-term benthic changes near McMurdo Station helped change the U.S. Antarctic Program's procedures for sewage discharge in the Antarctic. She also discovered that the B-15 iceberg (the world's largest recorded iceberg) in Antarctica could impact benthic life over 100 km as it blocked access to their main food supply, the annual plankton bloom. This is a far-reaching effect that had not been previously documented. Conlan is actively involved within the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR). She is a Canadian representative on SCAR's Standing Scientific Group on Life Sciences (SSG-LS), and has served as Chief Officer of the SSG-LS from 2008 to 2012 and Secretary from 2004 to 2008. Conlan is currently on the selection committee of the prestigious Tinker-Muse Prize for Science and Policy in Antarctica. Conlan is a long-standing member of the Canadian Committee on Antarctic Research (1998–Present), providing advice and guidance on matters pertaining to Antarctic research and serving as a link between SCAR and the Canadian polar research community. She was Section Head of the Life Sciences-Zoology Program at the Canadian Museum of Nature (2006-2016) and adjunct professor at Carleton University (2004-2013). Conlan's impact has extended beyond research. She has mentored over 50 students and has given nearly 50 interviews to the media about Antarctica and over 100 popular talks. She has been profiled in four polar exhibits for museums in Canada and the U.S. She has written over 20 scientific papers on the Antarctic and her underwater photographs assist newcomers with identifying Antarctic marine life. She was an educator on the inaugural voyages (2000-2001) of the international Students on Ice program to educate youth about the importance of the Polar Regions. In 2002, Conlan wrote a children's book, titled Under the Ice: A Marine Biologist at Work, published by Kids Can Press.

Awards and honours Conlan was named as one of Canada's Greatest Explorers in 2015 by Canadian Geographic for her polar research which involved 20 expeditions, 11 of them to Antarctica. She is also the recipient of the Science in Society Children's Book Award from Canadian Science Writers' Association for "Under the Ice" a book for youth featuring her research experiences in the Arctic and Antarctic. Conlan received an Antarctica Service Medal (1992) from the US Department of the Navy and the National Science Foundation. She is also a 3-time winner of the R. W. Brock Award for best Canadian Museum of Nature research paper (1998, 2003 and 2006). She was also nominated twice for the YMCA-YWCA Women of Distinction Award in the Technology Category (1999 and 2001).

Selected works Barnes, David K. A.; Conlan, Kathleen E. (2007-01-29). "Disturbance, colonization and development of Antarctic benthic communities". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences. 362 (1477): 11–38. doi:10.1098/rstb.2006.1951. ISSN 0962-8436. PMC 3227166. PMID 17405206. Kim, Stacy L.; Thurber, Andrew; Hammerstrom, Kamille; Conlan, Kathleen (2007-08-03). "Seastar response to organic enrichment in an oligotrophic polar habitat". Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology. 346 (1–2): 66–75. Bibcode:2007JEMBE.346...66K. doi:10.1016/j.jembe.2007.03.004. Conlan, Kathleen E. (1991-10-01). "Precopulatory mating behavior and sexual dimorphism in the amphipod Crustacea". Hydrobiologia. 223 (1): 255–282. Bibcode:1991HyBio.223..255C. doi:10.1007/BF00047644. ISSN 0018-8158. S2CID 24832061. Conlan, Kathleen E.; Currie, David R.; Dittmann, Sabine; Sorokin, Shirley J.; Hendrycks, Ed (2015-11-30). "Macrofaunal Patterns in and around du Couedic and Bonney Submarine Canyons, South Australia". PLOS ONE. 10 (11) e0143921. Bibcode:2015PLoSO..1043921C. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0143921. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 4664417. PMID 26618354.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Kathleen Conlan

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Kathleen Conlan claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Kathleen Conlan before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Kathleen Conlan ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Kathleen Conlan

In research: Kathleen Conlan appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Kathleen Conlan in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Kathleen Conlan is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1950 births, 20th-century Canadian biologists, 20th-century Canadian women scientists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Kathleen Conlan outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Kathleen Conlan in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Kathleen Conlan means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Kathleen Conlan out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Kathleen Conlan in simple terms?

Kathleen Elizabeth Conlan (born July 30, 1950) is an Antarctic marine biologist who studies sea floor marine life. She was named one of Canada's greatest explorers by Canadian Geographic.

Why does Kathleen Conlan matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Kathleen Conlan?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Kathleen Conlan.