I am a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Natural Resource Sciences at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. I am very passionate about science outreach and am currently partnered with Earth Rangers in their Northern Project to teach kids about the conservation of Arctic wildlife.  

In addition to my work with Earth Rangers, I am doing research supported by the W. Garfield Weston Foundation and Fonds de Recherche du Quebec. I started working in the Arctic as a Master’s student studying high Arctic food webs, and have since worked in many remote areas across the Canadian Arctic; from Devon Island, Nunavut, to Kendall Island, Northwest Territories.

I currently study the effects of climate change on thick-billed murres, an Arctic seabird with a colony of 30,000 breeding pairs at Coat Island in Northern Hudson Bay, Nunavut. I am interested in the physiological response of murres to Arctic climate change, specifically the effects of changes in prey availability on their energetics and warming temperatures on their performance.

I completed my PhD at the University of Manitoba on beluga whales as sentinel species of environmental change in the Beaufort Sea ecosystem in partnership with communities in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region, Northwest Territories. In 2014, I was a Weston scientist on the Victoria Strait expedition in search of the lost Franklin ships, the Erebus and Terror. I was a Fellow for the Marine Working Group of the International Arctic Science Committee, and am currently a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.

If you would like to learn more about me and my work, or would like to contact me:

Twitter: @Emily_S_Choy

Email: emily.s.choy@gmail.com

Website: https://emilyschoy.wixsite.com/home 

Publications:

Choy, E.S.,  Giraldo, C., Rosenberg, B., Roth, J.D., Ehrman, A.D., Majewski, A., Swanson, H., Power, M., Reist, J.D., & Loseto, L.L. (2020). “Variation in the diet of beluga whales in response to changes in prey availability: insights on changes in the Beaufort Sea ecosystem.” Marine Ecology Progress Series: 647: 195-210: https://www.int-res.com/abstracts/meps/v647/p195-210/.

Choy, E.S., Campbell, K.L., Berenbrink, M., Roth, J.D., & Loseto, L.L. (2019). “Body condition impacts blood and muscle oxygen storage capacity of free-living beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas).” Journal of Experimental Biology222(11): jeb191916: https://jeb.biologists.org/content/222/11/jeb191916.

Media Coverage of Choy et al. (2019):

Choy, E.S., Sheehan, B., Haulena, M., Rosenberg, B., Roth, J.D., & Loseto, L.L. (2019). “A comparison of fatty acid signatures of captive beluga whales and their diets with potential applications to wild populations.” Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 516:132-139. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jembe.2019.05.005.

Choy, E.S., Rosenberg, B., Roth, J.D., & Loseto, L.L. (2017). “Inter-annual variation in environmental factors affect the prey and body condition of beluga whales in the eastern Beaufort Sea.” Marine Ecology Progress Series 579: 213-225. http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/meps/v579/p213-225/.

Published by Women in the Arctic and Antarctic