Featured Scientists

The Real Prince of WhalesMeet Jeremy Goldbogen. He tags whales. Yep, he pretty much has one of the coolest jobs of anyone we know.Through Jeremy’s research we get to cruise the ocean on the back of whales and experience how they eat krill, make those amazing noises and maneuver with surprising agility.  With a device the size of a book, Jeremy speaks volumes about the largest animals ever known to live on earth. 

Where Engineering Meets ScienceWhen Kakani asked her engineer grandfather what direction she should explore in her education, he replied, “well, civil engineering is about concrete, and that can get boring. So, aerospace seems like a good idea.”And so began an incredible journey from championship figure skating to groundbreaking discoveries of our oceans and how much we have to learn from larvaceans. Larvaceans, our featured chordate, are a vital part of the food web. Through Dr. Kakani Katija’s research we have learned just how pervasive plastics are in our oceans.“Really, I want to develop tools that will help science discovery explode.” - Dr. Kakani Katija 

Professor and Department Chair, Earth & Planetary Sciences, University of California, Santa CruzLike so many kids Matthew loved dinosaurs when he was growing up in Vancouver, B.C. It wasn’t a direct route from “dinos” to his current career, though. He was lucky enough to take a geology class in the 12th grade and discovered he was fascinated by fossils and rocks and geology. And, like many future paleontologists, Matthew enjoyed the outdoors, boy scouts and hiking. In college he liked chemistry and geology but wasn’t thinking paleontology until he took a class in it and thought: “I can do this!” 

Although Colin Howe is now living far from the ocean in school in Pennsylvania, his mind has always been on the ocean. He’s working on his PhD in marine science at Penn State studying corals off the coast of Colombia. 

For all of you who always dreamed of working in an aquarium taking care of the animals, Megan Olhasso gives us a solid picture of what that looks like.

Dr. Edie Widder is one of the best known marine biologists in this country and a hero of ours. When we asked her how she got into science, Edie said, “all school taught me to do was daydream.” Luckily, when she was 11 she traveled the world with her mathematician parents while her dad was on sabbatical and that opened up a world of possibilities for Edie.Discover how Edie got her marine biology groove.

Dr. Cristina Diaz has become famous in marine science circles for being the “sponge scientist” in the video on Shape of Life. Her love of sponges has taken her all over the world as a “freelance” biologist. Cristina says about sponges: "They are beautiful. They're original. They're mysterious. They are hundreds of millions of years old, yet they are still found all over the planet, in every sea."

"When I travel to annelid biology conferences around the world, there is usually someone who asks to take a selfie with me so that they can show their students back home that they met the Worm Woman from the Shape of Life Annelid episode!" 

The Curious Path to Conservation PolicyIt’s a really good thing (for all of us!), that Kelly ignored the discouraging messages she received in high school.“I didn’t plan on becoming a scientist. In fact, in high school I was told I wasn’t smart enough to pursue science. Worse, I believed it. That was before I made the connection between science and how much I love being in nature.”

Senior Education and Research Specialist, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research InstituteHow does a guy, wanting little more than to scuba dive in the ocean as a college student, discover a new species of comb jellies (ctenophores)!?Discover how George’s expertise (and mad diving skills) continue to enrich our understanding of the world of ctenophores.