Occasionally, in the early morning hours before field hockey games, Karissa Hough could be found at the beach. The Hofstra University graduate student had the habit of getting in some last-minute “birding” before hitting the field. For most student-athletes, managing a passion alongside academics can be challenging. For Hough, excelling at her sport while pursuing research in biology has been a masterclass in academics, time management and passion all together.

Hough started playing field hockey as part of a middle school club in fifth grade at home in Leighton, Pennsylvania. She played softball growing up and ran track in middle school but stopped both to focus on field hockey in high school.

“I just really fell in love with field hockey,” Hough said. “I just really liked the sport, and I got really serious about it in eighth grade and freshman year of high school when I was watching seniors from high school going on to play in college. I just knew a lot of players that were really successful and going to play in college, and that whole environment and seeing that is really what got my attention of like, ‘Oh, that would be really cool to go play in college.’”

Through the college recruitment process, Hofstra emerged as a perfect fit for her. Not only was it the least expensive school, but its academics and the change of environment appealed to her.

The commitment ended up working out better than Hough could have imagined, with her using the dual-degree program to earn both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nine semesters. Hough returned to field hockey for a fifth season, utilizing her extra year of eligibility granted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

During her career as a defender, Hough played in 62 games for a total of 3,097 minutes.

Her time on the field ended abruptly towards the end of her final season after she was hit in the mouth with a ball off the foot of Hofstra goalkeeper Pieke Roos. Hough had to sit out the rest of the season and watch her team from the sidelines. Despite that, she put a positive spin on the injury, thankful for the time she did have.

“It was kind of shocking, and I wasn’t ready for that to happen. It was just so unexpected,” Hough said. “I kind of took for granted all the time that I got to play, and then, I don’t think I was thankful enough for that time. I didn’t appreciate it as much and then once the injury happened, it was like, ‘Wow I really should be more thankful for the time that I was able to play.’”

But Hough’s story is more than her time on the field; her academic journey and scientific work have been exceptional. As a biology major, her passion for the outdoors and wildlife have directed her academic pursuits and research.

“I spent a lot of time outside growing up, and I did a lot of observing of the world around me and nature and wildlife,” Hough said. “I had a really outdoorsy family growing up, so I’d see different wildlife. And I took environmental science in high school, and that introduced me to a little bit of ecology and managing wildlife populations and how all that stuff works. And my high school [biology] teacher taught us basic backyard birds, so I was looking at birds a little bit too.”

As an undergraduate, Hough gained experience in the field with an internship with the Pennsylvania Game Commission. This work fed into her graduate research and her thesis which centers around tracking diamondback terrapins using satellite tags to study their movement and hibernation patterns along the northern Atlantic Coast.

“She’s collecting really the first data that’s ever been collected on this species in terms of their movements on an annual basis,” said Dr. Russell L. Burke, Hough’s thesis advisor. “She just happened to come along at the right time when the technology was available, and I had just gotten a grant to buy satellite tags … She is collecting absolutely phenomenal data and analyzing really amazing data on this species that we know so little about.”

Hough’s research has offered insights into the terrapin and their habits that have never been recorded before. Research has been done on the reptiles, but it has been in warm climates like Florida, not in the North. This is notable as terrapins hibernate in the cold, which is also a time of major mortality according to Burke. The tags allow Hough and other researchers to track where and when they die. This work has led her to interesting places, including Jamacia Bay located near John F. Kennedy International Airport, one of her two study sites.

“Terrapins will try to cross the runway to nest,” Hough said. “They have delayed flights because terrapins will cross the runway. So that’s a really interesting area to study terrapins.”

Hough attributes her success in balancing field hockey and academics to careful planning and a love for biology.

“Being passionate about what you’re studying I think helped me a lot,” Hough said. “Because I was interested in my classes, I wanted to learn. It wasn’t so tedious for me that I had to force myself to do my work. I really, really enjoyed what I was learning and what I was studying, that definitely made my life easier.”

One of Hough’s interests is a practice called “bird banding,” a process where a bird is captured and an aluminum band with a unique identification number is placed on its leg. This number allows researchers to track vital information about the bird if it is recaptured, such as where and when it was originally banded, its age at banding and its migration patterns. This data helps scientists monitor bird populations, understand their lifespans and track migration routes.

Hough learned about the practice after a bird bander came into her work and explained the process. Knowing about her love for birds, he invited her to go with him, leading to the two going out “birding” regularly.

“It’s pretty much every Saturday and Sunday whenever I could during the migration season,” Hough said. “I would go on the weekends and sometimes I’d go before field hockey games early in the morning and go bird banding with him.”

Hough is now an avid “birder” and spends considerable hours of her time outside observing, tracking, tagging and photographing birds. She has brought a youthful energy to the Long Island birding community and has even gotten her team to go with her.

“For the most part, everyone [who “birds”] is older and retired, and it’s something they look forward to on the weekends and there’s not a lot of young people, so every time I went and took people with me it really put a smile on their face,” Hough said. “The one day I took most of the team to volunteer they were so happy that we were all there.”

Hough’s commitment to her work in and outside of the classroom hasn’t gone unnoticed. Last year she was awarded the Sylvia J. Giallombardo Award which is given to Hofstra’s top scholar-athlete from a women’s team. She is also a multiple-time National Field Hockey Coaches Association Division I Scholar of Distinction and has been a part of the NFHCA Division I National Academic Squad and CAA Commissioner’s Academic Honor Roll.

“She’s really, really, hardworking, very, very dedicated to her work,” Burke said. “She’s really smart on top of everything else. I certainly have had students who are hardworking and were not also at the top of the of the smart chain and people who were smart didn’t work very hard. And so, she’s amazing because she’s a combination of both of those.”

As she prepares to graduate, Hough is set to embark on the next chapter of her journey. She recently accepted a one-year position with the Pennsylvania Game Commission as a wildlife technician, where she’ll focus on wild turkey research. The job couldn’t be more perfect for Hough.

“Usually when I say I’m a biology major, people assume that I’m going to go to [medical] school, that’s what they usually ask me,” Hough said. “And I’m like, ‘no, not even close. I really like working with wildlife.’”

Despite the abrupt end to her season, Hough has a positive recall of her time at Hofstra and what she’s learned.

“I would say just setting goals,” Hough said on what she’s taking away from her time as a student-athlete. “The determination and the hard work that it takes to play the sport at such a high level for this amount of time. I think I learned more just off the field, like character, you just build character from how hard it is at times to balance everything, and the skills that I’ve learned from doing all of this has really set me up for the future and just navigating through life and challenges.”

Photos courtesy of Brigid Lamaze and Joseph Orovitz