{"id":1417,"date":"2026-03-19T19:34:25","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T23:34:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/foodstudies\/?p=1417"},"modified":"2026-03-19T19:34:25","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T23:34:25","slug":"alumni-spotlight-kate-shepherd-21","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/foodstudies\/2026\/03\/19\/alumni-spotlight-kate-shepherd-21\/","title":{"rendered":"Alumni Spotlight: Kate Shepherd (’21)"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Career in Aquaculture after Dickinson<\/h3>\n

Kate Shepard (class of \u201921) chose Dickinson in part for its Food Studies Certificate program. She describes a long-standing interest in food systems and food in general; being able to explore that while also getting a broader liberal arts education drew her to the school.<\/p>\n

As an American Studies major, she was able to explore the structures that shape American society, and therefore the structures that shape our food systems. \u201cFood for me has always been a big part of my identity and so I was really curious about how food shapes other identities and cultures,\u201d she said on the topic of combining her major and certificate. \u201cI think I definitely was more the people side of things, not necessarily the science side\u2026\u201d At Dickinson she combined her interests in social sciences like anthropology and sociology with environmental and food systems studies.<\/p>\n

After graduation in 2021, Kate had a few shorter-term jobs before entering the oyster farming industry. \u201cI was like I don\u2019t want to go work in an office\u2026so I went and lived out on Martha\u2019s Vineyard for a couple of years and I fell in love with just like being near the water and working waterfronts because that was a whole side of the food system that I never really thought about.\u201d When a cousin was working at a mussel farm in Portland, she decided she wanted to relocate there as well and got accepted to the second cohort of the Maine Aquaculture Apprenticeship. There, she gained experience working on an oyster farm and also took technical classes, building up the biology and ecology background necessary for a career in aquaculture.<\/p>\n

After completing the apprenticeship, Kate stayed on as a farmhand and now runs the nursery program and oyster seed hatchery where they are raised to a certain size before being sent to the grow-out site. When asked what her favorite part of her job is, she said: \u201cI love being outside and working with my hands, and you have like a tangible product at the end of the day\u2026I think it\u2019s just been really fun to kind of learn a whole different industry that I didn\u2019t really know existed\u2026\u201d She says the work can be difficult, and it\u2019s hard to keep people in the industry long-term. There has also been some backlash against oyster farms, and the process of leasing waterways can be a significant barrier. However, she sees promise in the industry as a sustainable and low-input way of growing food. One oyster can filter up to fifty gallons of water a day, making them useful both as a food source and for improving water quality. Kate describes aquaculture as an important up-and-coming source of income for Maine residents, particularly since historical economies like lobstering are under threat from over-fishing and changing oceans.<\/p>\n

Kate believes that Food Studies and her Dickinson experience helped prepare her for her career by encouraging and fostering critical thinking, problem-solving, and communication skills, and also gave her a good foundation of food systems knowledge that was useful to her. She encourages current students to follow their interests. \u201cWork isn\u2019t your whole life, but it does make up a decent bit of your time, and for me, knowing that I\u2019m doing something where I feel like I\u2019m contributing to something good has been meaningful.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Kate Shepherd, Class of 2021<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Career in Aquaculture after Dickinson Kate Shepard (class of \u201921) chose Dickinson in part for its Food Studies Certificate program. She describes a long-standing interest in food systems and food in general; being able to explore that while also getting a broader liberal arts education drew her to the school. As an American Studies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5687,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[136305],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alumni-spotlights","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/foodstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/foodstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/foodstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/foodstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5687"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/foodstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1417"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/foodstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1417\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1419,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/foodstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1417\/revisions\/1419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/foodstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/foodstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/foodstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}