- Karen Kohanowich
- Program Officer
NOAA’s Undersea Research Program
My dad was in the Marine Corps, so I grew up in California, North Carolina, and Pensacola, Florida. I qualified as a scuba diver in Pensacola when I was 17, and knew I wanted to have a career in diving and oceanography. Little did I know what a varied and satisfying career it would be! The Navy sent me to college under the Reserve Officer Training Corps program; after I graduated from Vanderbilt University with a degree in geology, I attended Navy dive school and qualified as a salvage, or hard hat, diver. After 12 years as a diver, I shifted to the Navy’s Oceanography community, and earned masters degrees in Air and Ocean Science from the Naval Postgraduate School, and Environmental Science and Policy from Johns Hopkins University. I retired from the Navy in July, 2005, and have been the deputy director at NOAA’s Undersea Research Program (NURP) since then.
During my Navy career, I went to sea on three ships — the destroyer repair ship USS PRAIRIE, salvage ship USS SAFEGUARD, and the Canadian submersible and diving ship HMCS CORMORANT. I’ve lived in Hawaii, Japan, California, Florida, Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Washington DC. My career has afforded me with a number of unique opportunities: while on exchange duty in Canada, I piloted the Pisces IV submersible; as a midshipman, I helped with a 1000 foot dive at the Navy Experimental Diving Unit’s Ocean Simulation Facility (essentially a larger, more complicated version of the Aquarius habitat that is housed above the water, but can simulate ocean pressure of up to 2000 feet.) I’ve logged over 200 hours underwater, in places from the Caribbean to Newfoundland to Korea. In Hawaii, I helped train dolphins to recover dummy torpedoes, and in Washington, worked on environmental issues dealing with sonar and marine mammals. Interest in women divers has picked up in the past few years, and I’ve been fortunate to be selected to the Women Divers Hall of Fame, and be a member of the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Keyport, Washington’s Naval Museum exhibit on Women Divers — Part of the Navy Team.
All of this has led me to my present position. As the Program Officer for the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, NURP Center, I am especially excited about spending time aboard Aquarius and furthering our NASA partnership.
In my spare time, I like to swim, play golf, go sea kayaking, remodel homes, and spend time with my fiancé. I look forward to sharing the experiences of a week underwater on a moon exploration mission!
