|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|||||||||||||
|
Alessandra (Alex) Score Alex, 32, was born in San Jose, Costa Rica during one of her fathers' assignments with the United Nations. She lived one year in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (where her family is from), 15 years in Rome, Italy and two years in Santiago, Chile before she moved to the U.S. for college. She was privileged to learn 4 languages fluently: English, Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian, while her family transferred with the United Nations. She received her Bachelor's of Science degree with a Major in Marine Biology in 1991 from Florida Institute of Technology (FIT). During the period 1987-1991, she began scuba diving in Florida and the Bahamas and assisted various researchers in underwater fish censuses. Her main research at FIT was on reef fish community dynamics and feeding mechanisms in different coral reef habitats. Immediately following graduation in 1991, Alex began working for the National Marine Fisheries Service as a domestic fisheries observer in Alaska. Her duties were to monitor commercial fishing efforts in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska. She worked primarily on long-line vessels for 30-40 day trips at a time. She was fortunate to be able to be an observer on the F/V Woniya, the only sail power fishing vessel in Southeast Alaska. In 1993, Alex relocated to Ventura, California where she started working for Marineland, Inc. as a research associate studying aquarium biological mechanisms. While working for Marineland she continued diving as a NOAA volunteer during various fish censuses and the Great American Fish Count in the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary. In 1995, Alex relocated to Savannah, GA where she started working for NOAA's Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary. She worked part-time initially while obtaining her Master of Science degree from Georgia Southern University in 1998. Her research and thesis were in the colonization rates and succession of sessile invertebrates in the South Atlantic Bight. Upon completion of her MS, Alex served as the Information Systems Coordinator for Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary. Her duties included research for long term biological monitoring, characterization studies of reef invertebrates, loggerhead sea turtle spatial use in Georgia waters, creation and maintenance of an internet homepage, conducting educational seminars and distance learning programs, creation of outreach displays, and data analysis with use of Arcview GIS. She was fully certified as NOAA working and NITROX diver in 1996 and participated in numerous research projects which included; an invertebrate characterization of Gray's Reef, reef fish monitoring, loggerhead sea turtle satellite tagging, and archeological surveys. In 1999 she completed pilot training for the Deepworker submersible and participated as a pilot/researcher on the Sustainable Seas Expedition in the South Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico during 1999 and 2000. Currently, Alex is the Education Coordinator for the Reef Environmental Education Foundation (REEF) in Key Largo, FL. She serves as the nation-wide coordinator for the Great American Fish Count and works to develop education programs to engage the diving public in documenting the worldwide distribution of fish species. Soon after joining REEF, in August of this year, she was certified in the use of the PRISM closed circuit breathing apparatus that are being employed on this project. She is excited about the application of this technology to the study of reef fishes in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Alex resides in Key Largo, FL with her husband and two daughters.
|
|
|
|
|