S cientist Annsli Hilton, ’22, has been fascinated by the ocean and its wildlife for as long as she can remember. Her earliest memory of exploring ocean wildlife is a project she made in kindergarten on great white sharks.

In her current role as a research associate with the University of Miami’s Cooperative Institute of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, she’s contracted with The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries Southeast Science Center. 

Hilton was a first-generation college student who began her journey learning about marine biology and oceanography at Georgia College & State University. 

“The most valuable things I learned from Georgia College were how to ask important thought-provoking questions, but also how to take a scientific paper and be able to read it,” she said. “It can have a lot of information that can overwhelm you. So, just learning how to read through a paper, understand it and take away meaning from it helps me in my job every day.” 

Now, Hilton works with the fishery assessment, technology and engineering support (FATES) branch of NOAA Fisheries. She works with grey triggerfish and red snapper there.

In September, she spent two weeks on a large ship in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico conducting the shark and red snapper bottom long-line survey. The survey provides information for various research projects, as well as regional stock assessments. The elongated fishing line that’s used has 100 attached hooks, and it sits on the ocean floor for an hour, collecting sea life.

It takes over two months to conduct the survey. Different NOAA Fisheries scientists go out on the project for two weeks at a time.

“I went to a bunch of different stations,” Hilton said. “We started in Galveston, Texas, and ended up outside of Tampa, Florida, and then returned to port in Mississippi.” 

In the field, Hilton and her colleagues document all their tasks and findings. They use conductivity, temperature and depth (CTD) to examine the water’s physical properties, like depth and turbidity. Once the ocean organisms are caught, Hilton’s team documents everything they catch, even non-targeted species.

“We take three different measurements on each organism,” she said. “We also take samples, like fin clips from sharks and otoliths from fish.” 

Last year, she interned for the shark population and assessment group, working on various surveys. They studied how sharks use the Gulf of Mexico as a nursery and pupping ground in the GULFSPAN (Gulf of Mexico Shark Pupping and Nursing) survey.

“It was really easy to catch fish for that survey,” Hilton said. “We put out a 500-foot gill net. And depending on where we were, many sharks would hit that net. It was really easy to catch them. But, doing the sawfish abundance survey is quite difficult, because they are a critically endangered species, making them much harder to find.”

Last November, Hilton and her colleagues were in the Florida Everglades for two weeks searching for smalltooth sawfish. It wasn’t until their second to last day that they caught one.

“Its umbilical scar was still present, so it was most likely born about one or two months prior to us catching it,” Hilton said.

While the crew worked the Everglades, crocodiles lingered nearby.

“At one point, my fellow intern and lead scientist were in the water,” Hilton said. “I quietly asked the lead scientist, ‘Isn’t that a crocodile over there?’ Unfortunately, my fellow intern heard me and got a little nervous. A crocodile was about 15 feet away from us just watching.”

“I was more nervous to be in the water with bull sharks,” she said.

“Some of the coolest species I've gotten to help tag and take samples from are some larger shark species, like tiger sharks and the critically endangered species like the small tooth sawfish,” Hilton said. “It's crazy to see a species that we have so few of left.”

When Hilton’s not in the field, she spends half her time working alongside a biologist in the lab with red snapper. She’s responsible for imaging red snapper histology slides.

The other half of Hilton’s time in the lab is spent researching the age and growth of grey triggerfish with another biologist. Traditionally, fish are aged with their otoliths.

“Triggerfish have very small and fragile otoliths,” she said. “Therefore, triggerfish are aged using their spines which deposit annual rings similarly to otoliths.” 

“We can look at them under a microscope and count their spine’s rings, similar to a tree, to age them,” Hilton said.

From the time Hilton was a sophomore at Georgia College, until she became a senior, Dr. Kristine White had the biggest impact on her education. An assistant professor in the Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, White focuses on marine organisms.

“When I was a senior in her oceanography class, she gave my class the opportunity to go on a field trip to the University of Tampa and go on one of their oceanography vessels to work on the boat for a day trawling the bottom for different organisms,” Hilton said. “That moment solidified my decision that this is what I want to do.”

Ultimately, Hilton and her colleagues produce stock assessments for different marine fishes—making sure there’s enough abundance for commercial fisheries to keep catching fish 30 years from now.

“If it weren't for our research and policymakers putting different restrictions in place,” she said, “these species would be overfished, and we wouldn't see them anymore. So, it's really important to make sure that the fisheries stay healthy.”

“There are a lot of great parts about my job that excite me. One of them is I get to work with my favorite animal—sharks,” Hilton said. “But the best part is that I get to bring my dog, Koavr, whose name represents an ocean cove, to work with me. I got my dog when I was a freshman at Georgia College. He’s my best friend. So, it’s important that he gets to hang out with me for eight to nine hours a day instead of being left alone.”

During the workdays, Hilton enjoys taking quick walks by the water with Koavr to watch the dolphins.

“There’s a study that shows working by the water makes you happier,” she said. “I honestly believe this is true.”