- Ashley Knight
Although I was raised in Northern Arizona, my passion for marine science has never faltered since I discovered it at age 12 at Seacamp, here in the Florida Keys. As soon as I could, I left the land-locked desert and headed to the nearest ocean - San Diego. There, I earned my bachelors degree in Environmental Systems at the University of California San Diego. I decided to work for a while in the real world before heading back to graduate school and scored an amazing job at the Pfleger Institute of Environmental Research (PIER) in Oceanside, California. I get to spend a very generous amount of time in the field SCUBA diving and assisting with the deployment of PIER's ROV, and I get to pore over plenty of data in the office (to satiate the true science nerd deep inside). My interests in studying the ocean include: the efficacy of marine reserves and protected areas - both future and present, the effects of climate change on marine ecosystems, and the cycling of organochlorides in the ocean. One day I'll have to focus on one (or two), but I wouldn't dare narrow my interests until I have to.
Being a part of this saturation mission is incredibly exciting; living underwater to a marine scientist is what going into outer space is to an astronomer. Observing the ocean from within can only help to advance our knowledge of such a complex, unexplored system.
