- Cielomar Rodríguez-Calderón
- Virginia Institute of Marine Science
Who wouldn’t like to be in a tropical beach with white sands, pristine and transparent waters, lying in a hammock tightened to palm trees? Sounds ideal, right? But what if you decide to go a little bit further from those who stay in the sand and explore beyond the waterline, with a mask and snorkel, like my father taught me when I was a little girl?
Well, then you will discover a whole different world, with its own rhythm, showing the most spectacular variety of magnificent colors, and it will never be the same. Once you start enjoying every piece of the sea, you will never get tired of it, and that is what happened to me.
I am from Puerto Rico, the smallest of the Greater Antilles in the Caribbean, and since I have memory I have spent great part of my life at the beach with my family. After 24 years I still think about my name which means sky and sea in English and I believe it was my parents’ commitment to make me love the sea as part of me. As years went by, my interest in human/earth interactions, geography, geology, nature in all its forms, but especially in the ocean, became so strong that I knew that I wanted to continue graduate studies on something related with coasts or the open ocean. Definitely, my parents accomplished their mission.
Another important chapter in my life was at college, where Dr. Maritza Barreto-Orta, a professor from the Department of Geography inspired me still more to continue studies in marine geology. At college, I worked for three years (2002-2005) as a research student for the Puerto Rico Sea Grant Program at the first Marine Reserve of the Island. In 2005 I participated in the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Program where I spent the summer at the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences (VIMS) comparing shelf sedimentation patterns during the Holocene with present conditions off the Waipaoa River, New Zealand. In 2006 I began graduate school at VIMS to obtain my Masters degree and pursue a Ph. D. on Geological Oceanography. Now, I am working in the York River, Chesapeake Bay, VA, looking at the relationship between seabed density, erosion/deposition and sediment pelletization. After all these experiences, I feel ready for my next and very unique chapter: my mission to the Aquarius as part of the Sea Camel Project.
