Nicholas Som, PhD

Nicholas joined the CRU in November of 2023, as the Unit Leader of the California Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, and faculty in the Department of Fisheries Biology at California Polytechnic University, Humboldt where he’s had a long history of service and science collaboration. Nicholas’ educational history includes an undergraduate mathematics degree from Regis University, a master’s degree in statistics from Washington State University, and he received his Ph.D. from Oregon State University where he studied time-series and spatial statistics for data originating from stream and river networks. Prior to joining the CRU, Nicholas was a statistician and program lead for the fish and aquatic conservation program at the Arcata US Fish and Wildlife office.

Nicholas’ research focuses on answering ecological questions with quantitative tools aimed to inform resource management decision makers. His main interests include water management and the ecology of pacific salmon, and his work includes both methods development and applied science projects. His applied work has ranged from the Columbia to Sacramento Rivers, but with most attention on the Klamath Basin. He frequently works on models for aquatic habitat, population dynamics, and disease dynamics.

Nicholas teaches graduate courses on statistical methods common to fish and wildlife projects, such generalized linear models, applied Bayesian modeling, etc.