Angel Waters returns from fish scale research on Shetland Islands, Scotland

Angel Waters ’18, an Oceanography major, recently returned from the Shetland Islands in Scotland where she served as the resident expert in the use of ion probe equipment at the North Atlantic Fisheries College (NAFC ) Marine Centre and conducted research on the similarities between fish scales and human bone.

Waters trained to use the equipment with Joseph Kunkel, Ph.D., research professor in the Department of Marine Sciences, last year as a freshman.

Her research focused on the possibilities of using fish scales to study bone growth, as harvesting scales is non-lethal and relatively inexpensive. Fish scale research may have significant implications for researching bone growth, repair, degeneration and regeneration.