Thursday June 5, 2025
North Country Public Radio —
Most undergrads don’t get the chance to work with museum-preserved specimens of deep sea anglerfish. Then again, Rose Faucher isn’t most undergrads.
“The fish world is actually pretty small, and it feels kind of like everybody knows everybody,” says Faucher, who graduated from Rice University recently with her bachelor’s degree in cell biology and genetics.
“They’ll FedEx you a fish that has been sitting in a jar since like 1965 … and you get to open up a package in lab one day, and you’re holding one of the rarest fish on earth.”
One particular unboxing of a footballfish — a bulbous, prickly-skinned fish with needle-sharp teeth and a stalk-like lure on its head — was especially memorable. “I was so excited, I [picked it up] and ran down the halls of this building to go and show all of my friends that I had a football fish,” she says.