How to Actually Break Into a Marine Conservation Career with "Conservation Queen" Camille Lasbleiz

Ep. 20: Green crabs aren't native to New England, so can we use an "eat them to beat them" approach? Dr. Gabby Bradt has spent more than a decade trying to find out. Gabby is the Fisheries and Aquaculture Extension Specialist for UNH Cooperative Extension and New Hampshire Sea Grant, and she’s been on my guest wish list since before this show had a name. She interned for my dad at the EPA back when I was a kid watching him tow a boat up to Maine for fieldwork (and deciding that looked way bet...

Ep. 019: Ever wondered about the life of an oyster before it hits your plate? This week's guest is oceanographer Jacqueline Rosa. She spent a year and a half monitoring the surface and bottom of the bay, plus six months raising oysters in three kinds of farming gear. One of those was Flip Farm, a New Zealand–designed system that's getting Rhode Island oyster farmers' attention. She did all of this after a decade away from school, working at marine science nonprofits and in outdoor education. ...

Ep 018: Fishing charter captains don't care about conservation, right? Wrong. Coral Aiello started working on her dad's charter boat as a 14-year-old mate. Sixteen years later, she's the captain and her dad works the deck. In this episode, Coral shares why she believes fishers care about the ocean more than most, how she brings fish tagging aboard her charters, and what her seat on the Rhode Island Marine Fisheries Council has taught her. Plus: warming waters, the "Professional Hooker" ...

Ep 017: Melissa Hobson is one of the most published ocean writers around, with bylines in National Geographic, BBC Wildlife, Scientific American, The New York Times, and The Guardian. After she was peer-pressured into learning to scuba dive on the Great Barrier Reef, she slowly transitioned her career from PR to writing about the oceans. There are so many options for building a marine career that isn't "scientist," and Melissa shows us just how incredible a career in ocean writing can b...

Ep 016: Dr. Liberty Boyd went to college to become a teacher, but walked out a sea turtle scientist. In this episode, we get into the decade-long question that pulled her in: what are sea turtles actually doing for 99% of their lives when they're not up on the beach nesting? For her Ph.D. research, Liberty tracked turtles across the Bahamas, Bermuda, and Australia using cameras, underwater microphones, and Apple-Watch-style motion tags. She breaks down, in plain language, how each one works a...