On Saturday, January 5th, over 120 Island School alumni, alumni parents, faculty, faculty alumni, and friends of The Island School gathered at the Marriott Long Wharf hotel in Boston, MA for the first semester-wide reunion in 2 years! The day started off with a strenuous psycho led by the one and only Chris Maxey. The fearless leader led the 35 morning exercise participants along the downtown Harbor Walk (and through the snow!), stopping to do “Nellas”, dips, 8-counts, and of course everyone’s favorite, Island School jumping jacks. To say that we stood out and got a few strange looks would be an understatement!

After morning exercise, attendees had the opportunity to catch up with familiar faces and meet new friends before settling down with lunch to hear from our guest speakers. Cape Eleuthera Institute’s Edd Brooks spoke about his PhD shark research and his partnership with the New England Aquarium’s John Mandelman, PhD.

John focuses on the conservation physiology of marine fishes, predominantly elasmobranchs (the sharks, rays and skates) and their lethal and sublethal blood chemical responses to anthropogenic stressors – such as fishing capture and handling, and acoustic stress – in marine fishes. He is currently partnering up with Edd Brooks and CEI’s Shark Research & Conservation Program. Together they delivered a very interesting presentation that gave alumni an update on the type of research going on at CEI, and also how CEI is moving forward and partnering up with other successful organizations with the New England Aquarium. After Edd and John’s presentation, everyone had a chance to catch up some more, visit the Aquarium, and visit some of the aquarium’s scientists’ wet labs. At the end of the day, alumni left the Marriott and split into their respective semesters for dinner and other evening plans.

Thank you all who came to the reunion and made it such a success! We can’t wait to get everyone back together again! To see more photos from Saturday, see our Flickr album here.

Miss out on this reunion? Make sure you update us with your contact information so that you don’t miss out again! Email alumni@islandschool.org.