A major responsibility of the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences is training professionals and technicians needed by (1) marine industries that use Alaska's rich resources, and (2) public agencies charged with conserving those resources. We have a high faculty-to-student ratio, conducive to preparing excellent researchers and managers. More than half our graduates stay in Alaska and work for private companies and public agencies. Many students work as professional interns for agencies during their course of study.

Fisheries represents a diverse range of research interests including quantitative fisheries science, fish genetics, fish ecology, and fisheries oceanography. The Genetic Stock Separation Lab is in place at the National Marine Fisheries Service Auke Bay Lab, near the Juneau fisheries facility, and salmon aquaculture genetics studies are in progress at our Salmon Broodstock Lab, a cooperative effort with one of the state's private nonprofit companies that produce salmon by ocean ranching. Our faculty have directed field studies on the effect of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, in addition to continued involvement in research supporting fishery managers around Alaska. Field studies are conducted regularly at the Seward Marine Center, Toolik Lake, Glacier Bay, Prince William Sound, Chukchi Sea, Bering Sea, the Arctic Coast, and lakes and rivers throughout the Interior.

Several major research foundations and agencies support fisheries research and students at the University of Alaska. They include the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service through the Alaska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, Rasmuson Fisheries Research Center, Alaska Sea Grant College Program, Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Restoration Trustees, National Marine Fisheries Service Saltonstall-Kennedy program, Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Alaska Science and Technology Foundation, Pacific Seafood Processors Association, National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, National Geographic Society, and many others.

Fisheries faculty and students actively cooperate with international fisheries scientists. There are formal agreements between the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences and the Faculty of Fisheries at Hokkaido University, Japan; the National Institute of Polar Research in Tokyo; the Marine Biological Institute and the Pacific Oceanological Institute of the Far East Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Vladivostok; the Institute of Marine Biology in Murmansk, Russia; and Shanghai Fisheries University in the Peoples Republic of China.

Faculty members are active in many areas of public service, including advisory panels and committees for the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, the Alaska Board of Fisheries, and local or regional policy and planning committees. These memberships keep the Fisheries Division faculty involved in research at the forefront of new resource conservation issues. The Fisheries Division is one of the more exciting research and training units of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and is playing an important part in ensuring a bright future for Alaska fisheries.