By Timothy R. Olsen ’09, M.B.A. ’18

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More akin to the sludge you find in the bottom of a wet-dry vac than a college research project, fish puke isn’t high on the list of study topics for most students. But that grey muck — similar in consistency to grits — was just the ticket for Manny May.

More precisely, incorporating a new method to non-lethally study the stomach contents of a threatened species of native Utah fish, the June sucker, was May’s ticket.

A graduate out of the S.J. & Jesse E. Quinney College of Natural Resources — first in 2019 with his bachelor’s in fisheries and aquatic sciences and then in 2023 with his master’s in ecology — May now works for the Bureau of Land Management in Fairbanks, Alaska. His area of oversight spans roughly 6 million acres of some of the most diverse and breathtaking terrain in the world, but the job of a fish biologist casts a wide net.

And while studying the contents of a fish’s stomach is more common in that degree path, May’s path from growing up in Salt Lake City, to a stint in the military, to graduating from USU, and ultimately moving to Alaska, was anything but common. It even included an appearance in an episode of House Hunters along the way.  

Wanting Something More

“In high school, it wasn’t uncommon for me to get C’s, D’s and maybe an F here or there,” admits May who recently turned 36. “Honestly, I barely graduated high school. It was a struggle for me.”

After high school, he spent some time at community college where he earned an associate’s degree. Again, though, it was a struggle and his heart wasn’t in it.

Figuring out where to go from there, though, turned out to be elusive. May bounced from job to job as he searched for something to ignite his drive. As he explains it, those jobs allowed him to make ends meet, to “do what I needed to do to pay the bills,” but the passion wasn’t there. He didn’t just want to work, he wanted a career.

Recognizing that he was going through a “what do I want to be when I grow up?” phase, May decided to join the Air Force Reserve as an aerospace ground equipment mechanic at Hill Air Force Base at the end of 2012. In 2013, just a few months after getting married, he left for basic training. He served on active orders for three years (2013-2016), spending five months in Afghanistan during that time.

“I think the military was probably the best thing I could have done to motivate me and prepare me to become the best self I could be,” he says. “I knew that I had to be someone that was dependable. … that centered me and helped me focus on the things that are most important and how to assess challenges that I face in life, so that I could achieve bigger things for myself.”

After returning from a deployment to Afghanistan in 2016, May transitioned to a traditional reservist role, before ending his service in 2020.

While May’s time in the military helped him focus, it also clarified what he didn’t want to do — work as a mechanic outside of the military. The back-breaking labor, having to deal with harsh chemicals, the wear and tear on the body “wasn’t exactly a fun career,” he says.

As he sought to answer the question of what he wanted to do for a career, though, one passion subject kept coming up — fisheries. He even spent a summer during high school volunteering with the Utah Fish and Game, helping to stock fish in ponds once a month.

“It was just something I kept coming back to,” May remembers. “Because I always enjoyed the outdoors, I love being on the water, I love handling fish. It’s just a great time for me. So, I decided that’s what I’m going to do.”

Under the Microscope

With his GI Bill in hand, May began his Utah State journey in 2016. He wasn’t the only Aggie in the family, though, as his wife, Sophia, landed a job in the Student Involvement & Leadership Center at USU.

“I really owe a lot of thanks for my loving wife, who supported me through my soul-searching and educational experience,” May emphasizes. “She took on the bulk of our financial responsibilities while I chased my dream. I owe everything to her, and I love her immensely.”

And as he chased that dream, May immediately stood out to his professors — not just because he was a little older than many of his peers — but because of his work-ethic, focus, and inquisitive nature. He demonstrated a willingness to tackle tough problems, but also an aptitude to solve them with outside-the-box solutions.

“He was a more mature student when he started as an undergrad, and, as a faculty member, I love working with students like that, because they come in with real life experience,” says Dr. Karin Kettenring, a professor in the Department of Watershed Sciences. “They’re the students that are so motivated and focused, and they have a good sense of what they want to be doing here. They’re just a joy to work with.”

Eventually, May found his way to the Quantitative Fisheries and Aquatic Ecology Laboratory, which is under the oversight of Department of Watershed Sciences assistant professor Timothy Walsworth. There, may started as a technician, working with research project coordinator Kevin Landom to process samples while putting in a lot of microscope time.

That lab time led to field work opportunities with Walsworth and Landom, the latter of whom has been managing the lab since 2009. As the work progressed, May started really analyzing data and working on his own projects, ultimately propelling him down the path he ended up on.

And that path led to one of May’s important undergraduate research projects — one that involved fish puke. More accurately, it involved figuring out a way to safely study what the June sucker — native to Utah Lake and the Provo River and endangered at the time — was eating, without killing it. To do this, May researched non-lethal methods being used on other species, conducted autopsies on already deceased specimens — both on the June sucker and on other similar species — and ultimately landed on a gastric lavage technique.

Essentially, a semi-forceful squirt of water down the fish’s throat causes it to vacate the contents of its stomach. However, unlike other fish species that regurgitated their stomach contents, the power-wash through the June sucker forced everything out the back end. Thankfully, this method proved to be non-lethal and provided some interesting results.

“His research found that their diets were a lot more varied than had been previously considered in the literature — that there was a lot more overlap with other species out there,” Walsworth recalls. “It was a really cool finding, and he was able to share those results with the June sucker recovery program.”

Both Walsworth and Landom say they provided May guidance during his research, but he really took the onus of the project upon himself, researching and developing the procedure, and analyzing the data. During his research, he discovered the June sucker’s intestinal tract is very long and uniform and the species doesn’t have a well-defined stomach, which is why a different approach was needed.

“I think he really saw that he could do this, that he was cut out for science,” Landom says. “I think some undergrads think they’re not cut out to do the whole analyzing data and presenting it to people, but once they go through the experience, they realize that they can.”

While he may have been cut out for the science, the writing and communications side of things needed some work.

“I struggled, man, I struggled a ton,” May recalls with a chuckle.

Though he still wouldn’t consider writing a strength, May credits both Landom and Walsworth for helping him improve as a writer. His mentors cite his hard work. May presented his June sucker research to the American Fisheries Society, and also constructed posters summarizing his science and the research behind it. That experience hammered home for May the importance of being able to communicate clearly through the written word.

And even as he found his passion, excelled at the research and science, and honed his communication skills, the mechanical skills he picked up in the military came in handy from time to time as well.

“The outboard motors on our boats break down all the time. That’s just what outboard motors do,” Walsworth laments. “So, he was very helpful to have around for that reason, but it was also his perspective on when things don’t work. [He’d] push forward and figure out a way to make them work.”

The Last Frontier

Courtesy of the Mining Law of 1872, placer mining is a controversial and destructive process that uses heavy machinery to extract eroded minerals, like gold, from sand and gravel stream bed deposits. And right now, it’s one of the biggest challenges May deals with.

“They take big bulldozers, they take excavating equipment, and they trench out streams and the valley bottoms next to streams,” May says. “They sift through all the material and take the gold out, leaving a pretty desolate landscape afterwards.”

When they’re done, though, the claim owners are required to restore the land, which is where May comes in. The latter part of his undergraduate work and much of his graduate work dealt with habitat restoration. With many of the streams and drainages being prime spawning grounds for Arctic grayling and Chinook salmon, restoring the vegetation and gravel beds — especially in places like the upper Yukon River drainage where the salmon population is crashing — is extremely important.

That process, however, can be challenging as the mining eliminates a lot of the materials that foster plant growth. Combined with the cold Alaskan climate and limited year-round light, the vegetation growth rates needed to stabilize streams in the reclamation process are slow.

Originally, when he started at Utah State, May hadn’t planned on pursuing graduate school. But his experience with undergraduate research prepared him for that step, opening those doors and ultimately equipping him to land a “dream job” upon graduation.

“I think [undergraduate research] really pushed me to where I’m at today. Because if it wasn’t for the undergraduate work that I did in the lab, I probably wouldn’t be as well-equipped as I am now,” May emphasizes.

“It was an opportunity for me to apply what I know and make it my own. And that’s what was really cool and intriguing about undergraduate research, is that you have the opportunity to make it your own. You get to solve complex issues that nobody else really might have the answer to, and you kind of become the professional.”

And now working in a career path he loves, not just a job, he’s using a combination of the skills he learned in class, in the lab, and in the field to make a difference. A difference made possible because of his undergraduate research experience at Utah State and the engaged faculty mentors who invested in him along the way.

“The built-in mentorship opportunity for me to follow someone who’s very experienced, that already kind of set me apart from most other students,” May recalls. “Undergraduate research really builds a lot of character. It allows you to apply the knowledge you gain in your classes to real world scenarios.”