- Greg Shellenbarger
- U.S. Geological Survey
I grew up landlocked in Ohio, yet still managed to develop an early fascination with the ocean. I was SCUBA certified at 15 (oh the joys of those Ohio rock quarries!) because I thought all marine biologists had to dive. During my undergraduate years at Bowling Green State University, I studied biology, marine science and chemistry. A summer of marine science immersion was spent at Shoals Marine Lab off the coast of Maine. After college I spent an incredible year exploring the dive community with the Our World Underwater Scholarship. This gave me the opportunity to gain dive experience along the coasts of the U.S., the Caribbean, and the Red Sea. Still with the lingering marine bug, I completed a Master’s degree with Jon Witman at Northeastern University working on sponge predation defenses and was able to avoid three Boston winters by teaching for the East/West Marine Biology Program in Jamaica. Following this, I taught oceanography for Sea Education Association. The siren song of school again called, and I completed an Engineer Degree in the Environmental Fluid Mechanics Lab at Stanford University working under Stephen Monismith. My project involved determining the contribution of submarine ground water discharge to the near shore nutrient budget of a coral reef in Eilat, Israel. I am currently working with the Bay–Delta Sediment Group at the US Geological Survey in Sacramento. This is my fifth Aquarius saturation mission.
