Ian traveled to Hawaii twice in summer 2025. The first visit in June was to be trained in approaches that Brayan was learning during his NSF-INTERN funded program working at the Pacific National Wildlife Center – Honolulu (USGS), which saw him working with Thierry Work between June and August. Together they sampled bacterioplankton at three sites around Honolulu (port, Ala Wai) as well as surface swabs of rocks near the mouth of the port of Honolulu. Ian also learned necropsy techniques and participated in molecular work on insects and cnidarians that Brayan had been performing. Ian and Brayan also went cage diving for fun.

In August, Ian returned to Honolulu to obtain specimens of Diadema paucispinum, the toxic relative of the Caribbean Diadema antillarum. Together with superstar free diver Matty Miller (UH), we sampled urchins at Electric Beach, returned them to the lab at PNWC, and dissected them for later study on the global Diadematidae microbiome.