I couldn't believe all these exotic, beautiful creatures with their wonderful life histories. I got hooked on marine systems and hooked on doing research. That experience led her to graduate school at the University of Washington in Seattle, where the leading scientists in the just-forming field of experimental ecology were developing new insights using rocky intertidal communities. They wanted to understand why different kinds of plants or animals evolve in different places and how they influence one another. But the top predators in intertidal pools are sea stars, and you can easily move them around or add more.
Intertidal pools are a fantastic laboratory.
They provided much of the basis of today's conservation biology. In her first year at Seattle, Lubchenco met and later married Bruce Menge, who was finishing his Ph.D. in marine ecology. Menge had been offered a position at the University of Santa Barbara and Lubchenco agreed to accompany him. They had different mindsets and assumptions, different ways of looking at the world. I really benefited from the diversity.