Transcript
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There are so many graduate students that are doing amazing things and people in
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science that are doing amazing things with science, not only on their
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graduate work or their scientific work, but also their side
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hustles or what they like to, if they really get involved in science and
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they have a little bit of a knack or a skill to develop something, they
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can develop something. And today we're actually gonna be talking to Paige
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Hull, who just finished her PhD in
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coastal eutrophication from UCLA in
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the US, She's also known for a little page
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that she has on TikTok and it's at
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98,900 followers right now and it continues to grow. There are some
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videos that she talks about different stories around
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like surfing waves and sort of the impacts of the Olympics on
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surfing waves. She also talks about the Resolute Desk
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in the White House and how that has an oceanographic tie to
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it. She does these stories in just amazing ways. And I
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wanted to have her on the podcast so badly. And she actually reached out to be
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on the podcast, which I was so happy. So we have her on today. We're
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going to talk to Paige about science communication and about her PhD work
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and just science in general. So let's start
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the show. Hey,
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everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
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I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the
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ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, what you can do to live for a
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better ocean by taking action. And on today's episode,
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we're going to be talking about speaking up for the ocean, because we have
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Paige Hull, who's on the podcast today, talking about
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not only her PhD work that she did on coastal eutrophication and
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how she makes that really exciting to hear about, but also about
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her science TikTok. her science communication tiktok efforts which
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are absolutely amazing if you want to go to her
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tiktok it's at lil l-i-l ocean
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page p-a-i-g-e you
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can check it out she you're not going to be alone in watching her videos
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but she has this incredible knack to tell stories. And
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it's out of this world. I was a huge fan of her
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before she reached out to me to be able to be on this. She goes,
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hey, do you want me to come on the podcast? I can talk about this and this. And I was like, yes, absolutely.
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Yes, I'm a huge fan of yours. So I'm looking, I'm really looking forward to it, which was,
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it was an amazing podcast. We talked for over an hour about
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her PhD, about her science communication efforts. And
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it was absolutely riveting for me anyway. So
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I hope it is for you. She's a super interesting
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individual. She tells stories on this podcast, like
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she tells stories on TikTok, and it was an
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absolute pleasure to have her on. And a lot of the times, when you hear
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people do a science communication effort, or
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dedicate their time to doing science communication, you don't really hear about the
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nuts and bolts of how they put videos together, or
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how they put a tweet together, or how they put a strategy together. You
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know, Paige goes in depth into that, and I think it's really
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interesting. On the other side of that, on the science side of
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it, where she actually does science, she talks a lot about, you
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know, how she grew up wanting to do a PhD. It ran
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in her family. I've never heard of that, but it ran in the family with multiple
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people in their family. had PhDs and so she always thought she was going
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to do a PhD and then she got interested at the age of four or five in
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oceanography which is insane if you think about it and
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then now here she is just finishing a PhD in coastal eutrophication
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oceanography and just being super interested in that
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that that stuff that we don't really hear about all the time.
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Oceanography is not as common as we think. When we hear about someone
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studying the ocean, we automatically go to marine biology. She's like, nope, oceanography
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is for me, and that's what I want to do. And she talks about her journey to
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there, how she chose the project that she did, and why it
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was so important. And then, of course, the science communication aspect. So there's so
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much to get out of this episode. You're probably going to want to listen to it more than
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once, and I don't blame you. But here's the
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interview with Dr. Paige Hull. Enjoy, and I will talk to you after.
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Hey Paige, welcome to the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Are
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you ready to talk about all things oceans and ocean storytelling?
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I feel that I feel that because I have to admit like I
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do a little research before I have people come on And I did
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a lot of research on your tiktok page and you probably
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tell the best stories That I ever like I'm a huge fan. So
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I'm very excited when you when you reach out you're like, hey Andrew Do you want me to come on your
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podcast? I can talk about my phd I could talk about so i'm like absolutely like
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this is awesome and we found out we're both fans of each other so
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that's it's gonna be a lot of fun exactly so there's gonna
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be a lot of conversation but I you know I want my audience to get
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to know you today and to get to know what you did for your PhD how you
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got to the point where are you doing a PhD and what you
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want to do it on and then even into the science communication how
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that you kind of fell into that and just realize you're like hey people
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like the way I tell stories okay I like So we'll see
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how that goes. But before we get into all that, Paige, why don't you just let people know who
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Yes. Well, thank you for the kind intro, Andrew. So
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my name is Paige, and I am an oceanographer.
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I have a PhD in atmospheric and oceanic science.
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And I have more recently become known as a little
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ocean page or Ph.D. pagey on tick tock. And
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I've had a relatively successful ocean tick tock
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for the last year or so. And I'm really just enjoying all
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the science communication and spreading the wonder that I've always
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had for the ocean. But now getting random
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strangers on the Internet to learn along with me, it's been such a
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That's awesome because I am, as you know, I'm a huge proponent of
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getting people involved in the ocean, people who aren't like studying the
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ocean full time or marine biologists or coastal scientists
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or oceanographers and conservationists who may not
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know much about the ocean and, you know, want to to
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be entertained at the same time as learning and I think you
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do a perfect job in balancing those two and it's
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not an easy thing to do and we definitely appreciate it.
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What got you into the ocean in the first place? You say you've always had a curiosity. When
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do you remember that first time you were like, ooh, I like this
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So I was I was always one of those I
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have a frankly annoying story Which is that I just
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knew from the jump. I was like four or five years old
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and I saw a We had a VHS tape of
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Robert Ballard. Dr. Ballard finding the battleship Titanic
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and No, no, no, the battleship Bismarck, the same scientist
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who found the Titanic originally, but this was a
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VHS tape about him finding the battleship Bismarck. And
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he, prolific oceanographer, he used all these
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different tools and now a very outdated technology
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to find the battleship. But I watched
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this VHS tape until it couldn't play anymore. I
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was just so... Even at that age, like four and five years old? At that age. Wow.
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I was sold. I was like, you can explore the ocean as
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a job? That's a thing that you can do?
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I'm sold. And it helped
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that my grandmother lived in San Diego,
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and we would go down to visit her, and we'd spend
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our Saturdays just at the beach, sand
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on every single part of my body, in the water. I
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was always like a water baby. And I just remember wondering
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The waves keep coming. And every time I
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come here, there's waves. Yeah. what is
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this place? So that, like, imagination
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was just like, from the jump. And from there on out,
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it was like, kind of a done deal. So yeah,
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from there, it really progressed. I, it helped
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that I was good at math and science and physics and
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chemistry. I was always, my family's like
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pretty scientific in background. I'm actually like, one
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Yes. Uh, which, uh, is,
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is an advantage in the sense that I was like, well, if my, if my dad can
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get one, if my grandpa can get one. If my great grandmother
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had one, you know, like, why not me? It seemed like a very, like,
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not like it was an expectation, but almost in a sense seemed very accessible. Because
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I was like, well, they all did it. So yeah, why can't, why
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not me? Um, but yeah, I knew I was
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interested in oceanography, not marine biology. I find marine biology fascinating,
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but. I like can't see blood. So the thought
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of cutting any animal open was like a no-go for me. Um, but
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yeah, I, I understood that like, oh, it's understanding
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the physics of the ocean, understanding the chemistry of
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the water. And yeah, it was just like,
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okay, that's what I gotta do. I gotta be good at math. I gotta be good at chemistry.
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I gotta be good at physics. And then it also helped,
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too, that my dad works, makes software for
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a mapping company. So maps are
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very prolific in our household. And I
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loved maps, maps of the ocean floor, maps of countries
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and interesting... Even like the older maps, right, where the
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geography changes and the sort of the morphology changes as
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you go through it. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It
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was, it was pretty, yeah, it was kind of straightforward for
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me from the jump. I was like, okay, I love the ocean. I'm good at school. I'm
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just going to keep riding this until the wheels fall off.
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I love it. Now, were you one of those students, say,
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in high school, like, you know, it's a math-intensive subject
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matter, even just to get into science, to get into university, right? You
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gotta take your physics, you gotta take your chemistry, you gotta take your
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calculus and functions and whatever that
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might be. Were you a student that naturally, like,
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you were able to learn it pretty quickly, or did you have to, like, work your
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There's no wrong answer by the way on this. Yes and no. I'd
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be lying if I say I wasn't just good at math. I've always been good at math. But
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I think when I got into high school and in college, university
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really was a kick in the butt my first year because in high school I
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knew the exact amount of time I could put in and I would get
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a result and it would work and then I just assumed that would
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transfer to a university and I did my undergraduate at
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UC Santa Barbara and which is like
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a pretty rigorous school and I Going through
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that it was like calc to my
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my first quarter. I Failed I got
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a D. I've never gotten anything lower than a B in my entire
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life. I was like And I
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got I got I was so upset I think I got a
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C in chemistry and I was like, oh it's a good student like First
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Oh my gosh, but I remember being so upset and
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my mom was like My mom came into my room and was
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like, so you just think because you
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worked hard, you're entitled to an A. Is that what you think? Like,
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welcome to the real world, Paige. But
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I mean, she was right. She was right. And she's like, it's
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not about you failing this class. It's like, what are you going to do now? You
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got to pick yourself up, like brush your knees off, like,
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like deal with your bruised ego later. What are you going to
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do now? And I think normalizing, like failing
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so many people fail so many times before they get it
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right. I think But like perception that you need
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to be perfect at everything will cripple you. You don't
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achieve anything because you'll just be scared. But yeah,
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I mean, I failed. I failed to math classes in
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college and undergrad. And I retook them
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and I got A's the second time. Yeah, I did
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OK in physics. I got
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through it. I took like the engineering level of physics. So
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like the hella hard. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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But also too, I've always known that I had a good
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storytelling ability and I've always known that what I
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lack, even if I'm not an A plus student, my
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enthusiasm counteracts that and we can't all be
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the same. There can be someone that's
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better than me at research but can't tell the story, so how valuable is
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the research that they did if no one's going to know about
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Or that even tracks with when you go
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for a grant. It's a storytelling exercise, right?
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When you apply for a grant. So you may be able to do the research and kick
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butt in the research, but if you can't get the grant to pay for the research, you're
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not going to be able to do the research in the first place, right? So that comes
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So during that part, that's a tough time. And a lot of students go through that. That's
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just not you. I went through that. A lot of people, we get humbled
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in university. It doesn't matter the year. There's always one course
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or two courses that really help. For me, it was invertebrate zoology one
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and two. Our lab exam
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was like you had to identify the animal in a microscope, and then
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you answered a question on it. If you got the animal wrong, you you
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you were marked like six out of ten you know to get perfect right
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so and it was never an animal that you've seen before it
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was always an animal that you hadn't seen before but you had to go through the process and
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identify the kingdom and the phylum and all that kind of stuff
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super super difficult but like For me, I learned to
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be resilient. How did that teach you to sort
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of, because look, doing a PhD is harder than
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undergrad, right? So how did that teach you to fight back
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and just be like, no, I'm gonna scrape and crawl and do what I can to
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take everything that I know and to believe in myself to be able to do
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Yeah, that's the key word there is belief. It's
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such a fake it till you make it type of deal because you realize that
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You realize when you're in university that, you
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know, it goes two ways. Sometimes it's like, everyone's smarter than me. Everyone
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has all this knowledge. But then you also do realize, well,
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everyone had to learn it. once you know everyone was
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a beginner at some point and when
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you get to a certain level of academics a lot of
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it I do think is grit like obviously you need a
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certain amount of like you know ability to retain knowledge
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but at a certain point I definitely realized as
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an undergrad I was like I think this is just about just
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pushing just pushing onwards ask
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and also to like asking for
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help asking and putting yourself in the situations that
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you didn't think you deserved. Why not try? Yep. Like as
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an undergrad, I took graduate level classes my last
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year, because I was like, you know what, why not? Like, yeah, let me just ask
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these professors and see if I have the chops. To get through a
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couple graduate level classes, and if I can do that, then why can't
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this? Like, why can't this? But
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I started and part of it, yeah, is you got to be a little bit
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cocky to be like, yeah. Why not me? I
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got this. Why not? Yeah, I got this. Whatever. And
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what's the worst that's going to happen, right? My
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worst case scenario is really not that bad in the grand scheme of things. So
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I might as well shoot my shot. But
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I feel like a lot of once
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I realized I just needed to ask and put myself out there
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and continue to bite off seemingly more than
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I could chew, I was rewarded. It
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was like, Oh, you want to do an undergraduate thesis
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with some esteemed professor. Great. He's excited
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to work with an undergrad or like you want to intern for
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this company in Denmark. Cool.
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They sit there actually interested in you because you asked
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like so much of opportunities like
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in this podcast, like, You just got to ask, you
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know, you got to, you don't, you don't wait for life to happen to you. You got to like go
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after it. And so in terms of a PhD as well, where that
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is a five year exercise in getting kicked in the teeth, like
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it is so humbling, but at the same
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time, like, you just got to ask, you just got to keep like, you're
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there. You found your way there. That's not
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for nothing. Like, Keep trying, keep asking. And
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a lot of a PhD too, which I
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didn't realize until maybe halfway through, is
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it's proving that you're a scientist. It's like making yourself into
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a scientist and proving you're a scientist. It's not about being right. Because
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so much of science is getting things wrong. And if
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you're so afraid to get things wrong that you don't do
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anything a little bit risky or do any interesting research or
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come up with any interesting ideas, then you're
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kind of failing your Ph.D. because you're not there to get
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it right. It's not a class where there's A, B, C, D. It's
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an exercise in making yourself into a scientist. And
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so that is a totally different
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experience. But it gets back to like the grit, like just ask,
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just keep just push. Even if you don't think you deserve to be there, like
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Well, here's case in point. When you reached out to ask to
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be on the podcast, You were on my mind to
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ask to be on the, like, I was going to ask you to be, I just never
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did. I'll be like, she's at 98,000 followers on TikTok. There's
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no way she's going to, she must get messages upon messages upon
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messages. If I DM her, is she going to even see the message? Right.
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And then we find out we're fans of each other and you're just like, oh
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my God, like, yeah, we're just people. And
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yes, of course I want you on the podcast. And, you know, and it's just a
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matter of asking and putting yourself out there to just be like, yeah, Might as
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well, you know. But that's
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such a hard thing to get over, I think, especially as a young undergrad
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student. I think it's one of those things where, even
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in the science, like we all have friends we've probably roomed with or
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been in a house with during the undergrad where they're in business
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and they don't start class until one o'clock in the afternoon. And
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meanwhile, I started when I was at 830 every semester
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of my undergrad career. And I went, because there's labs that happen in
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the afternoon that are all afternoon. And as much fun
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as they are, it's a hard day. It's a hard day's work. And it's a hard
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program to get through, no matter what you're going through, science related.
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It's a hard program to get through. And so during
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that time, you still have you
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know, the want to do, you know, oceanography and all
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that type of work. What was going through your mind during
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your undergrad? Like, how did your mind change or did your
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mind change in terms of what you wanted to do afterwards,
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whether it be work or even PhD or what you wanted to
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a great question. So
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I was so gung ho oceanography that
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I thought my, this was my, I think this
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was my freshman year, freshman or sophomore year. I was like, you know what? If
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I want to do oceanography, I should talk to grad students who are
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doing it right now and see, A, what they have
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to tell me, B, if it seems like they're having a good time. So
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I reached out, I sent Lord
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knows how many emails, probably like 30 or
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40 emails. So I went on to, and UC Santa Barbara is like
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a mecca for oceanography. So
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I looked on all of the different departments' websites,
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like the geography department, the earth science department, and I was
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majoring in earth science and geography, so I already knew some of
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those grad students. They had a special ocean
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science graduate school. I found everyone who was
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doing research that I was remotely interested in. I
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sent them an email. I was like, hey, I'm an undergrad. Your research
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sounds cool. Can we sit down for coffee? Can I come by your
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office? And eventually what that ended up with was
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I got opportunity to do research with
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one graduate student who is towards the marine biology and
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like fishery side. And I helped him out with his research
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for like almost a full year. And that was cool because I
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got to see he was in year two, three of his PhD. And
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I got to see what, what that kind of phase was like. Um,
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And then another God student responded to me, Alexa,
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who kind of remained my mentor to this
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day. And she was an absolute
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dynamo. I couldn't believe she was even talking to me. But she
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was like, your email was endearing. And I
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wanted to help you out. Yeah, you
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seemed really enthusiastic. And so through those
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relationships and just staying
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really in tune with the faculty. I like
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loved, we had some great professors and I just went to office hours
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every single opportunity I could. I, even
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if I didn't have questions, I just wanted to talk to them and be like, yeah, how'd you get
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into oceanography? How this, and actually my, I
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think this was my junior year. I think this was my junior year. Robert
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Ballard, Bob Ballard came to talk to the earth
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science faculty at UCSB. He's actually UCSB alum.
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And I got an email about it. This was like supposed to be a faculty meeting.
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I don't know how I got the email, but I was like, Oh, Oh,
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my gosh, drop everything. I went home to go
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get my one of his books, Eternal Darkness, which
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is about and I brought it and it's a faculty meeting
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around a round table. I see. Thankfully, I
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knew the professors are like, Hey, what are you doing here? And I
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was like, after the
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meeting, I like went up to Dr. Bauer
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I'm being cool right now, but I'm such a huge fan. This is
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And can we take a picture? So through my
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undergrad, I was really like, emboldened. I
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was like, yeah, I can do this. Yeah, I can
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like it is worth my time and it
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helped that I had I had friends out obviously
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outside and Like UC Santa Barbara is
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like known to be a party school. So, you know, you get a little
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bit of everything There's like great academics, but it's also Sunny
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and 70 every single day and you're on the beach. So, you know
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at times it was like, oh man, I wish I didn't have Two
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tough majors to do, but at the same time, it was
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just like, so cool. And the instructors
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were good. And I could, I could see I was making progress towards
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my goal. Like I could see, okay, like
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people are talking to me. I was like presented a
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conference, like all those little things that made me
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affirmed in me that all of my efforts were not for nothing. It
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would be different, I think, if I was just taking classes and I was like,
390
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what am I doing all this work for? But I respond well
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to external affirmation. So
392
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But did you think also, too, like there's the affirmation part, but it's also
393
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it's that It's almost that motivation when
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you start to volunteer with somebody to do their, help them do their graduate work.
395
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It's like, oh, this is really cool stuff. Like this is
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00:24:51,914 --> 00:24:55,874
amazing stuff. Like even the student you said, it was a bit more marine biology. It
397
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probably confirmed you're like, yeah, I'm probably not into the whole marine biology thing,
398
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but there's all this other stuff. Did you get to do some field work with this
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Like it just motivates you to want to do it that much more, right?
400
00:25:12,098 --> 00:25:15,841
Yes, yes, absolutely. We were collecting crabs.
401
00:25:16,101 --> 00:25:19,243
We, like, went into the field. We went on, like, boats to
402
00:25:19,283 --> 00:25:23,346
go get crabs. I was like, this is so cool!
403
00:25:23,706 --> 00:25:27,188
And then we had crab tanks, and we would dissect
404
00:25:27,208 --> 00:25:30,610
the crabs, which was so disgusting. But still,
405
00:25:30,690 --> 00:25:34,293
I was like, whoa, this is so neat! Yeah, at least there's
406
00:25:34,333 --> 00:25:37,675
no blood. At least there's no blood. Yeah, true, true, true, true. I saw
407
00:25:37,735 --> 00:25:41,220
more crab carapaces than I would like to have. But
408
00:25:41,280 --> 00:25:44,904
still, it was like, I like this whole process. Yeah,
409
00:25:44,964 --> 00:25:48,547
it's interesting. Yeah, doing this. And
410
00:25:48,607 --> 00:25:51,830
yeah, like, no, I felt like no time was wasted. So
411
00:25:51,971 --> 00:25:55,094
I'm thankful I went through all of it. But it's, it's not for the faint of
412
00:25:55,114 --> 00:25:58,437
heart. It is like, very time consuming if you really pursue it.
413
00:25:59,338 --> 00:26:02,518
Well, and I think that's What a lot of people don't realize when they
414
00:26:02,538 --> 00:26:05,940
go into undergraduate and even graduate work is
415
00:26:06,280 --> 00:26:09,362
it's supposed to take up a lot of time. You're not
416
00:26:09,402 --> 00:26:13,064
just there to go through the motions, get the marks, get the classes, and then graduate.
417
00:26:14,145 --> 00:26:17,487
University can offer so much more. College can offer so much more.
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00:26:17,727 --> 00:26:20,849
And it's up to you to take advantage of that. I find in
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my experience anyway, and this is not everybody's experience, but it sounds like it's
420
00:26:24,871 --> 00:26:28,590
quite like your experience where Professors
421
00:26:28,630 --> 00:26:31,773
are very open to conversation. If you show passion, you show you want to
422
00:26:31,953 --> 00:26:35,135
help out or you want to do something, you want to volunteer, they will have you
423
00:26:35,155 --> 00:26:38,437
in their labs if they have room. If there are people who
424
00:26:38,477 --> 00:26:41,779
want to go out in the field, they're always looking for undergraduates to help graduate students.
425
00:26:42,360 --> 00:26:46,062
And I think that really helps. And I find, like with my experience, the
426
00:26:46,082 --> 00:26:49,605
professor had like a little community in their lab. And it was like you felt
427
00:26:49,705 --> 00:26:52,927
part of that. That almost became a bit of your friend group, like
428
00:26:52,967 --> 00:26:56,369
your professional friend group. And I still have those friendships to
429
00:26:56,409 --> 00:26:59,954
this day. And now we're like, sometimes we're colleagues
430
00:27:00,014 --> 00:27:03,278
when we work and stuff. And so it's a kind of a cool
431
00:27:03,318 --> 00:27:06,563
experience, but you have to kind of get out
432
00:27:06,603 --> 00:27:09,777
of the... It's true. You gotta get out of the party and
433
00:27:09,917 --> 00:27:13,637
social side all the time to really immerse
434
00:27:13,657 --> 00:27:17,118
yourself into the university atmosphere and the ability to
435
00:27:17,158 --> 00:27:20,919
do research or fieldwork or extra
436
00:27:20,939 --> 00:27:24,020
skill sets or whatever that might be to be
437
00:27:26,641 --> 00:27:29,901
It's hard to have that perspective at that age, too, to
438
00:27:29,961 --> 00:27:33,522
know the opportunity that you have. For sure. When you're 18 years
439
00:27:33,582 --> 00:27:36,763
old, you're just like, this is the next thing to do. It's hard to know that,
440
00:27:36,803 --> 00:27:40,036
like, This is your opportunity that you'll
441
00:27:42,494 --> 00:27:45,736
Well, there are a lot of distractions at university. There's a lot to do.
442
00:27:46,157 --> 00:27:49,799
You can get involved in clubs. You can get a job at
443
00:27:49,839 --> 00:27:53,542
a bar, and that becomes your life. It's hard.
444
00:27:53,562 --> 00:27:57,205
There's a lot to, especially in the US,
445
00:27:57,545 --> 00:28:00,687
when university sports are such a big thing. You
446
00:28:03,729 --> 00:28:06,972
And there's the independent aspect. I was in third grade. I rode my
447
00:28:09,394 --> 00:28:12,997
Yeah, and sometimes that could be opportunities for
448
00:28:13,037 --> 00:28:16,260
you, right? Like that could lead to other opportunities, but other times it could be
449
00:28:16,300 --> 00:28:19,783
a distraction to what you want to do if your group
450
00:28:19,903 --> 00:28:23,407
is not necessarily focused on the same thing. And so you really
451
00:28:23,447 --> 00:28:26,670
have to work a little extra to get to that, which you did, which is awesome.
452
00:28:26,710 --> 00:28:30,044
But at what point where you're like, I'm going to do a PhD like
453
00:28:30,064 --> 00:28:33,469
you had your family who were probably like, yeah, you could do it like you're on track
454
00:28:33,489 --> 00:28:36,592
to do that. At what point did you be like, were you like, I want to do a
455
00:28:36,632 --> 00:28:39,796
PhD, but not only doing a PhD, but I want to do it in
456
00:28:43,921 --> 00:28:47,606
Yes. So yeah, the PhD thing was always kind of set for
457
00:28:47,646 --> 00:28:50,989
me because I was really in high school when
458
00:28:51,010 --> 00:28:54,656
i thought about okay i'm in the ocean what specific jobs
459
00:28:54,716 --> 00:28:58,924
can i get and i looked into. Actually
460
00:28:58,964 --> 00:29:02,302
being an oceanography was that entail. There are very few
461
00:29:02,402 --> 00:29:05,866
oceanographer jobs where you don't have a PhD because
462
00:29:06,066 --> 00:29:09,590
you're doing research. Oceanography is
463
00:29:09,630 --> 00:29:13,254
not cheap. They need very well educated people
464
00:29:13,374 --> 00:29:16,757
to do it. Um, so I knew
465
00:29:17,018 --> 00:29:20,782
from the jump, I was like, okay, I'm going to have to, I'm going to have to get a PhD. Um,
466
00:29:21,673 --> 00:29:24,976
But coastal eutrophication came to me kind
467
00:29:25,016 --> 00:29:28,979
of my sophomore junior year of college um,
468
00:29:29,420 --> 00:29:33,223
I was taking a biogeochemistry class
469
00:29:34,064 --> 00:29:37,707
um biology geology and chemistry all put together
470
00:29:37,727 --> 00:29:41,450
Um, and it was a marine biogeochemistry class. It's
471
00:29:41,490 --> 00:29:44,933
taught by david valentine at ucsp shout out.
472
00:29:44,993 --> 00:29:48,828
He's an incredible biogeochemist Yes, he is.
473
00:29:51,269 --> 00:29:54,851
I just remember the nutrient cycles were
474
00:29:54,911 --> 00:29:59,654
so fascinating to me and how nutrients
475
00:29:59,834 --> 00:30:03,136
interact so tightly with primary productivity and
476
00:30:03,176 --> 00:30:06,658
the biological pump. Then
477
00:30:06,738 --> 00:30:10,080
it was like, oh my gosh, we are really altering the
478
00:30:10,160 --> 00:30:13,801
nutrient cycle of the ocean in a way that we never have
479
00:30:13,901 --> 00:30:17,304
before. Never. Like, because if you even think about,
480
00:30:18,144 --> 00:30:22,007
you know, the Earth has been around for billions of years, there
481
00:30:22,067 --> 00:30:25,470
have been times where the ocean has been incredibly warm, and the
482
00:30:25,550 --> 00:30:28,812
physics has changed and the weather is different. But we've,
483
00:30:29,333 --> 00:30:32,675
the eutrophication, the influx of human
484
00:30:32,715 --> 00:30:36,198
nutrients is unprecedented. We've never seen anything
485
00:30:36,238 --> 00:30:39,861
like this and once I realized how interconnected it
486
00:30:39,921 --> 00:30:43,403
all was and how you could be
487
00:30:43,423 --> 00:30:46,865
a coastal ocean biogeochemist and focus specifically on oxygen
488
00:30:46,965 --> 00:30:50,407
or focus specifically on nitrogen or you know there's
489
00:30:50,447 --> 00:30:53,869
like a million different angles and I also think
490
00:30:53,969 --> 00:30:57,172
too Um, I love research for the sake
491
00:30:57,192 --> 00:31:00,573
of research, but to be frank, I want to do something that's
492
00:31:00,593 --> 00:31:03,814
like directly in touch with humanity and
493
00:31:04,354 --> 00:31:07,774
how we interact with the ocean. Um, because the
494
00:31:07,894 --> 00:31:11,515
ocean is a resource for us. It's also like maintaining
495
00:31:11,575 --> 00:31:15,556
our planet. And I find the interchange really
496
00:31:15,656 --> 00:31:18,876
interesting. Like, okay, if we do need to
497
00:31:18,916 --> 00:31:22,177
dispose of wastewater and we don't live in a perfect world where there's no
498
00:31:22,217 --> 00:31:25,633
wastewater. what's the safest way in which we can dispose
499
00:31:25,653 --> 00:31:28,895
of it in the ocean because we're not in a perfect world. And
500
00:31:29,315 --> 00:31:32,797
so all of those kinds of questions really fascinated me. So
501
00:31:32,837 --> 00:31:36,558
that was about my junior year of college.
502
00:31:36,598 --> 00:31:40,720
And then my senior year I did kind of a eutrophication style,
503
00:31:40,740 --> 00:31:43,842
um, thesis and I
504
00:31:43,882 --> 00:31:48,104
was totally enthralled. I was also enthralled with
505
00:31:48,444 --> 00:31:52,221
harmful algal blooms, right? that had, and
506
00:31:52,361 --> 00:31:55,903
actually I was exposed to those when I was doing research
507
00:31:56,083 --> 00:31:59,545
with the graduate student who was taking crabs, because
508
00:31:59,806 --> 00:32:03,428
some of the crabs had damelic acid, which is prevalent
509
00:32:03,468 --> 00:32:06,490
on the west coast of the United States from harmful algal blooms. And I
510
00:32:06,510 --> 00:32:09,572
was like, what? Like this crab is poisoned? And
511
00:32:09,612 --> 00:32:12,793
he's like, yep, you wouldn't eat this crab. And that
512
00:32:12,854 --> 00:32:16,196
also to me is just like, wow, like it's also interconnected. And
513
00:32:16,236 --> 00:32:21,016
so it was around then that I was like, all right, it's coastal eutrophication. I'm
514
00:32:22,036 --> 00:32:26,038
That's awesome. For your PhD, did
515
00:32:26,058 --> 00:32:29,699
you do it at UCLA? Is that where you did your PhD? Yes. Okay, so
516
00:32:29,799 --> 00:32:33,460
you moved down the coastline a little bit to UCLA.
517
00:32:38,722 --> 00:32:42,803
Yeah, so my advisor was Daniele Bianchi. When
518
00:32:43,423 --> 00:32:47,024
I was looking at graduate schools, I
519
00:32:47,084 --> 00:32:50,787
looked at all the major oceanographic schools And
520
00:32:50,807 --> 00:32:54,731
I was like, OK, who's doing coastal eutrophication? It wasn't
521
00:32:54,771 --> 00:32:58,754
until kind of at the end of my search that
522
00:32:58,814 --> 00:33:02,197
I was talking to a scientist at Scripps, Clarissa Anderson, and
523
00:33:03,078 --> 00:33:06,141
she was really involved in harmful algal bloom research. And I
524
00:33:06,181 --> 00:33:09,644
was like, I think I'm interested in how human nutrients affect
525
00:33:10,004 --> 00:33:13,327
harmful algal blooms. And she was like, I don't have any money,
526
00:33:13,427 --> 00:33:16,910
but I have a colleague who's really smart, who just got a grant. You
527
00:33:16,930 --> 00:33:20,815
should go talk to him. And so, yeah, I was
528
00:33:20,855 --> 00:33:24,297
crazy too, because I worked so hard on my applications for like five other
529
00:33:24,317 --> 00:33:27,799
schools. But last minute, he's like, yeah, I applied to UCLA. And
530
00:33:27,839 --> 00:33:31,561
I was like, Okay, cool. Um, you
531
00:33:31,601 --> 00:33:35,183
know, and so I ended up there and it was a great fit. And I
532
00:33:35,283 --> 00:33:39,106
liked that his work was modeling based. So
533
00:33:39,326 --> 00:33:43,405
using a big coupled physical biogeochemical model
534
00:33:43,425 --> 00:33:47,049
to make estimates instead of in-situ sampling,
535
00:33:47,089 --> 00:33:50,472
which has so many merits, but that is really
536
00:33:50,532 --> 00:33:54,696
expensive, really time-consuming. You're at the whim of
537
00:33:55,357 --> 00:34:01,607
the ocean, too. It's an unforgiving environment. Southern
538
00:34:01,647 --> 00:34:04,949
California, it, you would be shocked, you know? So,
539
00:34:05,310 --> 00:34:08,892
um, I was, and I love the, like, and
540
00:34:08,932 --> 00:34:12,434
this really gets into like my geography background, but I love that the
541
00:34:12,474 --> 00:34:16,017
spatial resolution of a model is everything.
542
00:34:16,697 --> 00:34:20,800
A model is inherently false because it is a model. But when
543
00:34:20,820 --> 00:34:23,962
you're dealing with ocean observations, you are at the whim of where can
544
00:34:23,982 --> 00:34:27,064
you take your ship? Where is, where is a
545
00:34:27,104 --> 00:34:30,236
pier? Where is a buoy? And you have to guess for
546
00:34:30,276 --> 00:34:34,458
everything else. Whereas like the model really appealed to me. So, um,
547
00:34:34,999 --> 00:34:38,280
yeah, once I was in, I was so happy to be there. He ended up
548
00:34:38,961 --> 00:34:42,342
actually ended up that another student he had coming in
549
00:34:42,422 --> 00:34:45,864
was like a better fit for the harmful algal bloom research. And
550
00:34:45,884 --> 00:34:49,806
so I just moved into general eutrophication in
551
00:34:49,966 --> 00:34:53,167
coastal Southern California bite, um, that region of
552
00:34:53,187 --> 00:34:56,600
the ocean around Southern California. And I focused, at
553
00:34:56,620 --> 00:35:01,081
the beginning of my PhD, I specifically focused on wastewater
554
00:35:01,121 --> 00:35:04,422
treatment policies. So yeah, in Southern
555
00:35:04,442 --> 00:35:07,644
California, about a billion gallons of wastewater are
556
00:35:07,664 --> 00:35:10,825
pumped back out into the ocean every single day. It's a lot of
557
00:35:10,865 --> 00:35:14,806
wastewater. That affects things. Yes, exactly,
558
00:35:15,066 --> 00:35:18,308
exactly. And it's treated, it's all treated wastewater. So
559
00:35:18,348 --> 00:35:22,149
it's treated to a secondary degree, meaning that all the organics, all
560
00:35:22,209 --> 00:35:25,897
of like the poop and urine and all nasty stuff, it's turned back
561
00:35:25,957 --> 00:35:29,939
into inorganic nitrate and ammonium.
562
00:35:30,699 --> 00:35:33,961
But still, when you pump that much nitrate and
563
00:35:34,001 --> 00:35:37,582
ammonium into the ocean, it's going to have major
564
00:35:37,662 --> 00:35:41,024
impacts on phytoplankton and primary production. And so
565
00:35:41,504 --> 00:35:45,245
my research focused on some hypothetical scenarios
566
00:35:45,305 --> 00:35:48,587
of different water treatment. And as
567
00:35:48,627 --> 00:35:51,748
we start to recycle more wastewater, how is that going
568
00:35:54,932 --> 00:35:58,715
And especially as the population increases, too. Yes. Right.
569
00:36:00,797 --> 00:36:04,441
Twenty three million people and counting. So very
570
00:36:04,481 --> 00:36:08,285
reliant. And the beaches of Southern California are
571
00:36:08,325 --> 00:36:11,828
visited more than the beaches of the entire rest of the United States combined.
572
00:36:15,233 --> 00:36:19,236
So it's like, how do we keep these beaches healthy? But
573
00:36:19,296 --> 00:36:22,519
also, we do really rely on, where else
574
00:36:22,559 --> 00:36:26,082
are we going to dispose of this wastewater? So I love
575
00:36:26,122 --> 00:36:30,185
that human ocean, those questions, I
576
00:36:30,645 --> 00:36:34,028
love. And now, especially with offshore wind
577
00:36:34,108 --> 00:36:37,250
energy becoming very prevalent all over, I
578
00:36:37,770 --> 00:36:41,885
love the spatial question of, Where
579
00:36:41,965 --> 00:36:45,189
could you do this? Where would this be smartest? Where is
580
00:36:45,250 --> 00:36:49,315
safe for marine species? These questions, I
581
00:36:49,415 --> 00:36:52,619
love to think about all the different angles. So it was
582
00:36:54,007 --> 00:36:57,128
Especially as the complexity increases, like the ocean users increase, like
583
00:36:57,148 --> 00:37:00,730
you mentioned, bringing in offshore wind power. But
584
00:37:00,770 --> 00:37:04,992
you also have fishers. You also have beach goers.
585
00:37:05,032 --> 00:37:08,353
You also have cruise ships and shipping in
586
00:37:08,413 --> 00:37:12,014
general, just trans-shipping in general. Then you have rivers.
587
00:37:12,074 --> 00:37:15,496
I think is it the Tijuana River that empties out into
588
00:37:18,337 --> 00:37:21,600
Yeah, right. And that's a river that has a lot
589
00:37:21,620 --> 00:37:25,223
of stuff in it, let's just say. Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes.
590
00:37:25,703 --> 00:37:28,886
It's a big unknown. Yeah. And it's a big
591
00:37:28,946 --> 00:37:32,209
water area, but there's a lot of people on the coast, and
592
00:37:33,069 --> 00:37:36,812
that has to be accounted for. So that's a
593
00:37:36,973 --> 00:37:40,696
really interesting thing. But not a lot of people think about it. So when you talk about
594
00:37:40,716 --> 00:37:43,798
your PhD, to even your family who are full of
595
00:37:43,838 --> 00:37:47,519
PhDs, right? Like when you talk about that, do
596
00:37:47,559 --> 00:37:50,901
they relate to eutrophication? Even friends and
597
00:37:50,921 --> 00:37:54,482
stuff like that, do they relate to that? Because when you see people
598
00:37:54,502 --> 00:37:57,624
studying oceanography, like a lot
599
00:37:57,644 --> 00:38:00,925
of oceanographers, deep sea biology these days, and with the whole
600
00:38:01,005 --> 00:38:04,447
deep sea mining and stuff, that becomes popular. Eutrophication always
601
00:38:04,467 --> 00:38:07,948
seems like, water quality always seems, even though it's super important, it's
602
00:38:07,988 --> 00:38:11,550
always at the lower end. Of of the scale when
603
00:38:11,630 --> 00:38:15,013
like when it comes to interest until like a massive algal
604
00:38:16,854 --> 00:38:20,136
Yeah Yeah, exactly exactly and I think
605
00:38:20,617 --> 00:38:24,199
with Like having grown up so I grew up about an
606
00:38:24,239 --> 00:38:27,462
hour and a half inland from LA like closer towards Palm
607
00:38:27,502 --> 00:38:31,054
Springs so Even if, you
608
00:38:31,114 --> 00:38:34,356
know, you don't go to the beach all the time, people know when it's
609
00:38:34,396 --> 00:38:37,818
like, Oh, I heard there was a red tide. Like, Oh,
610
00:38:37,878 --> 00:38:41,280
I heard there was, you know, and I do think or
611
00:38:41,320 --> 00:38:44,803
something. Yeah. Yes. People are very
612
00:38:45,263 --> 00:38:48,685
interested. I think it is. And you
613
00:38:48,725 --> 00:38:52,568
know, with my research, I moved on to understanding
614
00:38:52,608 --> 00:38:56,250
how eutrophication impacts kelp and people have so
615
00:38:56,290 --> 00:38:59,705
many questions. They're like, yeah, I saw a bunch of kelp here and
616
00:38:59,765 --> 00:39:03,367
why isn't kelp growing here anymore? And so
617
00:39:03,507 --> 00:39:06,890
I will say, and especially in the sense that
618
00:39:07,990 --> 00:39:11,873
water treatment contributes so
619
00:39:11,973 --> 00:39:15,115
much nutrients to the ocean. And it's so important for
620
00:39:15,155 --> 00:39:18,277
California. We're in South California like in a drought half the
621
00:39:18,317 --> 00:39:21,667
time. So It is really important to
622
00:39:21,707 --> 00:39:25,068
like have these conversations about what are we doing with our water? Where is
623
00:39:25,108 --> 00:39:28,290
it going? People want to know about desalination. Um,
624
00:39:29,470 --> 00:39:32,731
so I will say my, I'm grateful that my research is
625
00:39:33,132 --> 00:39:36,233
usually really well-received to the
626
00:39:36,313 --> 00:39:39,775
point where at my graduation party, I had to,
627
00:39:39,795 --> 00:39:43,356
I was like, I gave a presentation on my research
628
00:39:43,456 --> 00:39:46,858
to all my friends and family. And then I said, please, can we talk about anything
629
00:39:46,898 --> 00:39:50,261
else through us? I love the
630
00:39:50,301 --> 00:39:53,783
questions, but I have gotten so many the last, like, five
631
00:39:53,863 --> 00:39:57,085
years. But yeah, I will say it's
632
00:39:57,125 --> 00:40:00,467
well-received, especially to, as in
633
00:40:00,507 --> 00:40:04,229
Southern California, it is very progressive with their water treatment standards.
634
00:40:05,050 --> 00:40:08,472
It definitely goes far. The Ocean
635
00:40:08,532 --> 00:40:12,354
Protection Council, OPC, is part of California
636
00:40:12,374 --> 00:40:16,237
State Water Board. They're very aggressive in
637
00:40:16,457 --> 00:40:20,270
treating their water, and it has paid off. So all
638
00:40:20,310 --> 00:40:23,822
very interesting and again it's just like it all relates
639
00:40:23,942 --> 00:40:27,117
because people care. If they don't
640
00:40:27,157 --> 00:40:30,379
care about wastewater, they care about fish. Yeah.
641
00:40:30,579 --> 00:40:34,720
And the quality of the water impacts where the fish are. And
642
00:40:35,281 --> 00:40:38,482
everyone wants to know why there is stinky kelp on their beach or
643
00:40:38,522 --> 00:40:42,203
why there isn't kelp where it used to be. You know, it's like all of these questions.
644
00:40:42,283 --> 00:40:45,805
And with sharks in Southern California, they're like, what's the deal with the sharks? You
645
00:40:45,865 --> 00:40:48,986
know, and that I know less about, but I do know about the fish. And I know
646
00:40:49,006 --> 00:40:52,227
the fish are related to the primary production, which is
647
00:40:52,247 --> 00:40:55,889
really the waste water. So it all kind of comes back together. So
648
00:40:56,089 --> 00:40:59,391
usually people are like, what, like, tell me more.
649
00:41:03,333 --> 00:41:07,035
Well, and that takes me to your communication, like
650
00:41:07,055 --> 00:41:11,057
a side hustle or whatever it might be, people
651
00:41:11,157 --> 00:41:14,899
asking you questions and your ability to answer
652
00:41:14,959 --> 00:41:19,214
them in a way that's interesting for people. Mm-hmm.
653
00:41:19,535 --> 00:41:22,961
How was that like, how did you develop that skill set? Is that just sort
654
00:41:22,981 --> 00:41:26,548
of one of those things? You're like, I just enjoy telling stories and this
655
00:41:26,609 --> 00:41:29,955
is just the way it comes out as I do it yeah,
656
00:41:31,443 --> 00:41:35,385
I think the writing was on the wall. Looking back, for
657
00:41:35,445 --> 00:41:38,687
example, I had science projects in elementary and middle
658
00:41:38,707 --> 00:41:42,109
school and I would pretend to
659
00:41:42,169 --> 00:41:45,530
be an oceanographer on TV or I would
660
00:41:45,570 --> 00:41:48,952
be a TV meteorologist. I always
661
00:41:49,112 --> 00:41:52,594
loved to communicate science. I
662
00:41:52,654 --> 00:41:55,879
found it so interesting and I Always did kind of
663
00:41:55,919 --> 00:41:59,383
have a knack for it. Um, it wasn't until it
664
00:41:59,843 --> 00:42:03,507
was around kovat right when kovat was happening I had
665
00:42:03,527 --> 00:42:06,771
I just started my PhD and I was
666
00:42:06,811 --> 00:42:10,575
going to teach a class a general education class
667
00:42:10,935 --> 00:42:14,119
at UCLA on climate change and this was like
668
00:42:14,139 --> 00:42:17,634
a big class, like 400 students,
669
00:42:19,015 --> 00:42:22,356
and most of them non-majors. So most of them like com
670
00:42:22,396 --> 00:42:25,897
majors, psych majors. And frankly,
671
00:42:25,997 --> 00:42:29,118
most of them go into, and I don't know if you have
672
00:42:29,138 --> 00:42:33,120
any experience teaching a GE, but most students go into an
673
00:42:33,220 --> 00:42:37,181
oceanography class or a climate change class not knowing
674
00:42:37,301 --> 00:42:40,763
that it's going to be a lot of math and physics. Right. Right.
675
00:42:40,883 --> 00:42:43,984
I'm going to learn about polar bears and whales. And it's
676
00:42:44,024 --> 00:42:47,285
like, I Wanted to do a really good
677
00:42:47,325 --> 00:43:01,584
job teaching yeah, and so I I started
678
00:43:01,604 --> 00:43:04,687
a lecture series for my friends. And
679
00:43:04,727 --> 00:43:08,410
this was the beginning of COVID where everyone was like, doing virtual happy
680
00:43:08,430 --> 00:43:11,994
hours. And so I was like, Hey, friends,
681
00:43:12,054 --> 00:43:15,977
like, I'm going to teach you about climate change, I'm going to have one
682
00:43:16,038 --> 00:43:19,581
lecture a week, it's gonna be 30 or 45 minutes can be informal,
683
00:43:19,641 --> 00:43:22,891
and I'm gonna Yeah. So
684
00:43:22,931 --> 00:43:26,393
I practiced teaching first to
685
00:43:26,413 --> 00:43:30,195
a general audience because I knew it's so hard
686
00:43:30,315 --> 00:43:33,797
when you are deep in the science to remember that most people are
687
00:43:33,837 --> 00:43:36,898
not like I, it is the
688
00:43:36,959 --> 00:43:40,140
bane of my existence trying to get other scientists and
689
00:43:40,200 --> 00:43:43,322
faculty, you know, remember that try and
690
00:43:43,342 --> 00:43:46,864
remember a time where you didn't know anything about this and now explain
691
00:43:46,884 --> 00:43:50,061
it. Yeah. Now explain it from square one. And so with
692
00:43:50,181 --> 00:43:53,649
all of my friends from like every different, you
693
00:43:53,670 --> 00:43:57,897
know, walk of life, I would give these lectures. And
694
00:43:57,997 --> 00:44:01,779
that was super enjoyable. So that then morphed into,
695
00:44:01,799 --> 00:44:04,901
um, that actually was really fun. And then after I
696
00:44:04,941 --> 00:44:08,643
was done with my lectures, all of my friends each gave a lecture on something from
697
00:44:08,703 --> 00:44:12,065
their industry, which was, um, but
698
00:44:12,225 --> 00:44:15,627
from that, uh, lecture series, I made
699
00:44:15,647 --> 00:44:18,968
a newsletter. And so I would do a newsletter every
700
00:44:19,029 --> 00:44:22,390
like month or so related to climate change,
701
00:44:22,470 --> 00:44:25,652
oceanographic stuff. Um, I went on
702
00:44:26,112 --> 00:44:29,514
two oceanographic cruises, one with
703
00:44:30,175 --> 00:44:33,797
the go ship program, which does repeat
704
00:44:33,977 --> 00:44:37,559
cruises doing carbon, uh, measurements.
705
00:44:37,819 --> 00:44:41,241
So they go on a couple of different routes all
706
00:44:41,261 --> 00:44:44,903
around the world. And every like 10 years they
707
00:44:44,943 --> 00:44:48,359
measure all the carbonate chemistry. and see how carbon is
708
00:44:48,399 --> 00:44:51,700
changing in the ocean because it's sequestering carbon dioxide. So I
709
00:44:52,261 --> 00:44:55,442
did that and I did a lot of newsletters when I was
710
00:44:55,482 --> 00:44:58,504
on that cruise because people had so many questions. I was like, great, let me just do a
711
00:44:58,524 --> 00:45:01,625
bunch of newsletters while I'm at sea. And I did the same thing. I had
712
00:45:01,665 --> 00:45:05,487
another cruise with NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
713
00:45:05,507 --> 00:45:08,829
That one was more mapping focused. Again,
714
00:45:08,869 --> 00:45:12,191
I did a bunch of newsletters while I was doing that. But
715
00:45:12,311 --> 00:45:15,732
all the while, I was still teaching that climate change
716
00:45:15,752 --> 00:45:18,908
class at UCLA. And now in
717
00:45:18,968 --> 00:45:22,189
person, but I had so many students tell me like,
718
00:45:22,909 --> 00:45:25,950
page, you should start a tick tock. And I
719
00:45:25,990 --> 00:45:29,531
was like, I wasn't even on tick tock. Right? I
720
00:45:29,851 --> 00:45:33,433
was like, I don't know. I think I'm too old. Yeah. I
721
00:45:33,893 --> 00:45:37,514
didn't even know who's on tick tock. I figured it was like all dancing. And
722
00:45:38,614 --> 00:45:42,076
I have a girlfriend who
723
00:45:42,096 --> 00:45:45,517
I love so dearly. She makes running content. She
724
00:45:45,557 --> 00:45:48,993
was collegiate runner, and we became best friends.
725
00:45:49,193 --> 00:45:52,776
And I told her, I was like, Well, actually, I'm thinking about starting a YouTube channel.
726
00:45:53,317 --> 00:45:56,939
And she was like, Do not do that. She's like, I'm
727
00:45:57,019 --> 00:46:01,023
on YouTube, YouTube, and I'm on Tick Tock. And let me tell you, no
728
00:46:01,083 --> 00:46:04,525
one's gonna see your stuff on YouTube for years, right? You should make
729
00:46:04,545 --> 00:46:08,008
a Tick Tock. It's a long game. Yeah, she's
730
00:46:08,028 --> 00:46:11,170
like, if you want people to pay attention right now, you should make a Tick Tock. And
731
00:46:11,190 --> 00:46:14,631
I was like, Okay, so It was born from
732
00:46:14,691 --> 00:46:19,052
there. It's because she did it and then I
733
00:46:19,092 --> 00:46:23,857
still wasn't, I still couldn't believe that ocean,
734
00:46:24,277 --> 00:46:27,380
I figured oceanography was oversaturated on TikTok. I
735
00:46:27,400 --> 00:46:31,023
was like, there's gotta be great ocean people
736
00:46:31,163 --> 00:46:34,626
out there. I wasn't on it, so I didn't know who was doing, but
737
00:46:34,786 --> 00:46:38,370
I figured, I was like, ah, so I started a channel actually making some
738
00:46:38,430 --> 00:46:42,473
like undergrad college tips and
739
00:46:43,094 --> 00:46:46,138
like PhD tips in terms of like, How do you apply to a
740
00:46:46,158 --> 00:46:49,526
PhD program? How do you find a good advisor? What kind of workload
741
00:46:49,546 --> 00:46:52,933
can you expect? So I was doing that
742
00:46:53,074 --> 00:46:56,480
for about I don't know, half a year
743
00:46:58,021 --> 00:47:02,882
And I had like a modest following, I think at like 20,000, 10,000 followers
744
00:47:02,922 --> 00:47:06,143
or something, which is still, I know, I know we talk about TikTok being
745
00:47:12,265 --> 00:47:15,446
20,000. It was, it was like cool that a lot of people felt like
746
00:47:15,706 --> 00:47:18,940
they really trusted me. Um, Bob, I
747
00:47:18,980 --> 00:47:22,443
think the blonde Bob is very endearing. I think people inherently
748
00:47:22,463 --> 00:47:26,946
are like, she's not a threat. I
749
00:47:27,006 --> 00:47:30,228
honestly believe that. I've had this haircut my whole life. I'm
750
00:47:30,268 --> 00:47:34,512
like, I think this has some power. But
751
00:47:34,572 --> 00:47:37,855
yeah, and then I was still doing, but I was doing
752
00:47:37,875 --> 00:47:41,699
the separate newsletters about oceanography
753
00:47:41,719 --> 00:47:45,302
stuff and then it was one of my dad's, one of my dad's like
754
00:47:45,502 --> 00:47:48,725
old frat buddies, who I all consider to be uncles, he
755
00:47:48,805 --> 00:47:52,163
sent me an email and he was like, What is the Atlantic
756
00:47:52,243 --> 00:47:55,305
Mariana overturning circulation? And what is going on?
757
00:47:56,045 --> 00:47:59,187
And I did a whole newsletter on it. And I was like,
758
00:47:59,247 --> 00:48:02,610
let me just do the newsletters are super informal. And
759
00:48:02,630 --> 00:48:05,792
so I was like, let me also just film a tick tock. And that tick tock, like blew up, I
760
00:48:05,812 --> 00:48:09,774
got like a couple million views. And I was like, Oh, okay.
761
00:48:09,894 --> 00:48:13,137
Do you want to hear about it? Yeah, I guess I
762
00:48:13,157 --> 00:48:17,287
have the right expertise. And from there, it was, um, so
763
00:48:17,567 --> 00:48:20,729
fun, so fun to put the videos together. And it
764
00:48:20,769 --> 00:48:24,771
still, it just blew my mind every time that I was like, how
765
00:48:24,791 --> 00:48:28,173
are hundreds of thousands or millions of people watching this? I'm so glad
766
00:48:28,213 --> 00:48:31,535
they are. Um, but yeah, it
767
00:48:31,575 --> 00:48:35,017
was just like, it just fit very well. And
768
00:48:35,177 --> 00:48:38,959
again, a lot of it I think goes back to that teaching experience that
769
00:48:38,999 --> 00:48:42,681
I had at the university level where it's like, how
770
00:48:42,961 --> 00:48:46,323
do I get these college freshmen that are looking at me like
771
00:48:46,787 --> 00:48:49,891
they want to die when I just told them how much physics they need to
772
00:48:49,951 --> 00:48:54,377
learn, you know, like these intense equations to understand the
773
00:48:54,537 --> 00:48:57,841
Earth. And I'm like, no, stay with me. Like, this is
774
00:48:58,001 --> 00:49:01,546
actually really cool. I promise we can get through this.
775
00:49:02,047 --> 00:49:05,321
Let me make an analogy. And
776
00:49:05,341 --> 00:49:08,625
from there on out, it was like, yeah, it was it was
777
00:49:08,885 --> 00:49:12,689
a good fit. And honestly, it really
778
00:49:12,729 --> 00:49:16,553
blew up the last year of my Ph.D., my final
779
00:49:16,633 --> 00:49:20,277
year, and it provided such a nice reprieve.
780
00:49:21,163 --> 00:49:24,445
At times, because you're right, you're focused on writing at that point.
781
00:49:26,907 --> 00:49:30,109
It's just stressful and you know
782
00:49:30,189 --> 00:49:33,491
it's going to get done, but you don't feel like you can do it. And,
783
00:49:33,811 --> 00:49:37,033
you know, every once in a while I'd be like, what if I make
784
00:49:37,193 --> 00:49:41,456
a TikTok about thermal expansion of water? OK, let
785
00:49:41,476 --> 00:49:44,537
me do that, you know, and I'd like take that, you know, take an hour to
786
00:49:44,778 --> 00:49:48,080
like dally a little bit, but it ended up being like
787
00:49:48,180 --> 00:49:52,155
very motivating and fun for me to do. So yeah,
788
00:49:57,493 --> 00:50:01,056
With TikTok, it's almost like a style that people have, right?
789
00:50:01,116 --> 00:50:04,779
Some people will have dancing videos. That's probably when
790
00:50:04,999 --> 00:50:09,982
first people think about TikTok, they think of dancing videos. But
791
00:50:10,002 --> 00:50:13,465
there's others who, there's political TikTok, there's science
792
00:50:13,525 --> 00:50:16,948
TikTok, there's book talk, I think they call it. There's all
793
00:50:16,988 --> 00:50:20,270
these different categories. And everybody has, within
794
00:50:20,310 --> 00:50:24,196
each category, they have their own style. And lately, like
795
00:50:24,236 --> 00:50:27,558
if I go back to your last probably like 30 videos, it's
796
00:50:27,598 --> 00:50:30,881
very much like you need to learn about this. Like
797
00:50:30,941 --> 00:50:34,043
you need to know, have you heard of this? And
798
00:50:34,063 --> 00:50:37,266
it's like that nice hook where you're just like, oh no, I haven't heard of this.
799
00:50:37,846 --> 00:50:41,829
I need to know about this. And then you go into a lot of detail in
800
00:50:41,869 --> 00:50:45,932
your stories. Like useful information that
801
00:50:46,152 --> 00:50:49,570
really makes the story interesting. How
802
00:50:49,630 --> 00:50:53,252
long did it take for you to realize like, this
803
00:50:53,372 --> 00:50:57,153
is like a fun formula for you to to like use,
804
00:50:57,213 --> 00:51:00,435
but also a winning formula to in terms of
805
00:51:00,475 --> 00:51:03,916
like getting people to view and watch and enjoy
806
00:51:05,537 --> 00:51:10,019
Yeah, that, um, it really hit from
807
00:51:10,059 --> 00:51:13,501
the first, like from I made a tick tock about,
808
00:51:13,521 --> 00:51:17,122
so there was research released on the Atlantic meridional
809
00:51:17,182 --> 00:51:21,224
overturning circulation, and that the flow
810
00:51:21,364 --> 00:51:24,685
of warm water from the Gulf Stream up to the
811
00:51:24,785 --> 00:51:30,306
Arctic region and how it subducts underneath the
812
00:51:30,406 --> 00:51:33,987
North Atlantic. And a report came out about how
813
00:51:34,207 --> 00:51:38,288
it's potentially shutting down, how it's very concerning. And
814
00:51:38,889 --> 00:51:42,030
I was like, OK, let me make a
815
00:51:42,070 --> 00:51:46,119
TikTok on this. If I say Atlantic Meridional
816
00:51:46,179 --> 00:51:50,263
Overturning Circulation, swipe immediately. I was like, OK,
817
00:51:50,283 --> 00:51:53,466
no. So I forget what I
818
00:51:53,486 --> 00:51:56,689
took a screenshot of the headline that I had seen that
819
00:51:57,670 --> 00:52:01,533
it was on like CNN or something. It was like a very dramatic headline.
820
00:52:01,553 --> 00:52:05,156
It was like Ocean Circulation May Shut Down and
821
00:52:05,356 --> 00:52:08,900
da da da da da. And I started to tick tock like
822
00:52:09,858 --> 00:52:13,119
It's a green screen and my face was on it. And
823
00:52:13,259 --> 00:52:16,840
which is like, the way it started was a lot of people's initial
824
00:52:16,860 --> 00:52:20,681
reaction, which would be just like, Oh, no, like,
825
00:52:20,841 --> 00:52:24,161
I guess I waited a second. Yeah, so I
826
00:52:24,201 --> 00:52:27,862
waited a second for people to be able to read the headline. Yeah, which
827
00:52:27,922 --> 00:52:31,083
is crazy. And like, you know, if it worked for
828
00:52:31,103 --> 00:52:34,344
the article? Yeah, it'll work for my tick tock, right? Like people
829
00:52:34,384 --> 00:52:37,745
will be invested. So I read that I was like, Oh,
830
00:52:37,865 --> 00:52:42,403
no. And then I was like, Here's what this means. Let's
831
00:52:42,463 --> 00:52:47,906
break down why this is an alarming thing. So
832
00:52:47,926 --> 00:52:52,409
that format worked great. And my
833
00:52:52,449 --> 00:52:55,971
whole style is talk a little bit, green screen,
834
00:52:56,271 --> 00:53:00,674
point to figure, talk, point, show. I've
835
00:53:00,714 --> 00:53:04,516
always been a very visual learner, but also too,
836
00:53:05,176 --> 00:53:08,838
again, with teaching, I find that as little text
837
00:53:10,550 --> 00:53:13,872
as possible. Pictures, like
838
00:53:14,472 --> 00:53:17,874
tell a visual story. TikTok is a visual app.
839
00:53:18,574 --> 00:53:21,876
So I knew that obviously what I had, what
840
00:53:21,936 --> 00:53:25,057
I said had to be engaging, but also I wanted to
841
00:53:25,077 --> 00:53:28,285
be able to be like, Look at me, now look at this, now
842
00:53:28,345 --> 00:53:31,387
look at me. And I didn't know at the time it was a
843
00:53:31,427 --> 00:53:35,369
winning formula, but after I've grown
844
00:53:35,409 --> 00:53:38,711
in popularity, people are like, oh, did you know? Yeah, it's so smart
845
00:53:38,731 --> 00:53:42,854
of you to show your face because people like to see your face online
846
00:53:42,894 --> 00:53:46,015
because it makes them feel like they know you better. And it's like all
847
00:53:46,056 --> 00:53:49,618
these things that I was just doing, just giving
848
00:53:49,658 --> 00:53:54,400
these sentence, sentence, sentence. Changing
849
00:53:54,420 --> 00:53:58,001
the pictures. I didn't realize what I was doing was a winning thing
850
00:53:58,061 --> 00:54:02,002
to do until I'd made like a couple Good
851
00:54:02,062 --> 00:54:06,243
videos, which I enjoyed and I was like, oh This
852
00:54:06,283 --> 00:54:09,524
seems to be working. Um, but I will say yeah,
853
00:54:09,544 --> 00:54:13,365
the hardest part of my videos is the hook is
854
00:54:13,385 --> 00:54:17,386
like, yeah where do I begin because I find
855
00:54:17,486 --> 00:54:21,227
everything interesting, but there's so many
856
00:54:21,668 --> 00:54:25,244
crazy fascinating stories about the ocean and the atmosphere
857
00:54:25,264 --> 00:54:28,985
and our climate that I could tell. But the
858
00:54:29,145 --> 00:54:32,366
hook on TikTok, it's like you lose people in the first three
859
00:54:32,767 --> 00:54:36,148
Well, people are just scrolling with their thumb, right? Like, if that, if
860
00:54:36,188 --> 00:54:39,589
that. It's almost like half a second. They don't like what they see. If something
861
00:54:39,649 --> 00:54:42,786
on the page doesn't capture them. You know like
862
00:54:42,826 --> 00:54:46,027
I've watched videos on just even YouTube shorts where people are like if
863
00:54:46,067 --> 00:54:49,490
you zoom in right away then people start to you know that that catches the
864
00:54:49,690 --> 00:54:53,092
eye if you Walk into the scene that catches the eye
865
00:54:53,292 --> 00:54:56,734
or something pops up that catches the eye Something really has
866
00:54:56,774 --> 00:55:00,076
to catch because if not, they're just I'm off to the next video without
867
00:55:00,396 --> 00:55:03,698
thinking of the rest, you know Yeah, so that's that's the art because
868
00:55:03,778 --> 00:55:07,320
once I start talking I can tell a lot of stories but
869
00:55:10,022 --> 00:55:13,204
Most successful videos the most successful is that I figured out the
870
00:55:13,224 --> 00:55:16,826
hook I like knew the way in and it played my cards, right?
871
00:55:19,207 --> 00:55:22,869
No not easy to do at all Like
872
00:55:23,129 --> 00:55:26,310
and when you start to look at some of your videos like you said to
873
00:55:26,350 --> 00:55:29,592
look and you're like I've got some good views on
874
00:55:29,652 --> 00:55:33,474
here like there, you know, yeah, I'm looking at them now and
875
00:55:33,514 --> 00:55:36,750
your average you're like averaging a At
876
00:55:36,830 --> 00:55:40,673
least, you know, in the thousands, sometimes multiple thousands,
877
00:55:40,713 --> 00:55:44,335
like I'm looking at 45, you know, 16, 70. And every
878
00:55:45,175 --> 00:55:49,198
once in a while, you just start 2.5 million. You know,
879
00:55:49,238 --> 00:55:53,401
you have one to 7.2 million. You know, it's
880
00:55:53,641 --> 00:55:57,763
insane to think about. How people
881
00:55:57,803 --> 00:56:01,526
like how many people are watching these videos, I
882
00:56:04,511 --> 00:56:08,836
And you know the funny thing is, and I tell this to my friends all the time, I've now,
883
00:56:08,856 --> 00:56:12,400
I'm now like whatever, a published author. I have like a couple first
884
00:56:12,480 --> 00:56:16,124
author papers for my PhD. No one is
885
00:56:16,164 --> 00:56:21,379
going to read my dissertation cover to cover, other than me. Millions
886
00:56:21,419 --> 00:56:25,661
of people will watch my TikTok. And
887
00:56:25,901 --> 00:56:29,542
for all the academics that are hesitant with
888
00:56:29,582 --> 00:56:32,823
science communication, it's like, OK, I understand it's hard
889
00:56:32,863 --> 00:56:37,005
teaching old dog new tricks, but I'm going
890
00:56:37,025 --> 00:56:40,366
to get maybe 1,000 eyes on my best
891
00:56:40,466 --> 00:56:43,753
paper at the end of the year, maybe. If it
892
00:56:43,913 --> 00:56:48,095
blows up, but I just like talk
893
00:56:48,115 --> 00:56:51,696
to four million people about Atlantic
894
00:56:51,736 --> 00:56:55,197
marine overturning circulation, which I never
895
00:56:55,257 --> 00:56:58,419
in my wildest dreams would have thought. And I think also the
896
00:56:58,459 --> 00:57:02,080
cool thing about it too, that I definitely don't take for granted is
897
00:57:02,600 --> 00:57:05,841
that it's reaching so many people that do
898
00:57:05,921 --> 00:57:09,048
not know about the ocean. Like it's so easy to
899
00:57:09,088 --> 00:57:12,531
forget. I grew up in Southern California. I've always loved the ocean.
900
00:57:12,551 --> 00:57:15,794
I'm in a scientific family, but most of
901
00:57:16,075 --> 00:57:19,218
our world, most of the United States does not live. I mean,
902
00:57:19,258 --> 00:57:22,341
well, there's statistics about most of the world. It's like 30% of the
903
00:57:22,361 --> 00:57:25,684
world population lives on a coastline, but you know, but
904
00:57:25,744 --> 00:57:29,007
most of us do not know the ocean though. Yeah, exactly like
905
00:57:29,027 --> 00:57:33,549
the educational background and I think a lot of scientists Assume
906
00:57:33,569 --> 00:57:37,231
prior knowledge or like they've been in their bubble
907
00:57:37,251 --> 00:57:41,012
for so long even when it comes to like climate change communication Like
908
00:57:41,172 --> 00:57:44,334
obviously it affects everybody but let's not forget a lot of
909
00:57:44,374 --> 00:57:47,815
people first of all haven't been in school for a long time Yeah, so
910
00:57:47,835 --> 00:57:51,431
you're trying to tell them about Earth's like retaining
911
00:57:51,611 --> 00:57:55,274
its long wave radiation. Stop right there. You lost
912
00:57:55,835 --> 00:57:59,337
95% of the population when you said that. Um, so
913
00:57:59,377 --> 00:58:02,980
when I see like these views on my videos, I'm like, Oh,
914
00:58:03,000 --> 00:58:06,642
this is so cool. And my goal too,
915
00:58:06,743 --> 00:58:09,945
is not just to like have people walk, like, obviously it's
916
00:58:09,965 --> 00:58:13,848
great to have people watch and people like ocean people will
917
00:58:14,008 --> 00:58:18,554
continue to drink the Kool-Aid. But what really gets me is when people are like, Not
918
00:58:18,694 --> 00:58:21,897
ocean people, you know, they grew up there like in Indiana or
919
00:58:21,957 --> 00:58:25,701
there some landlocked country and they're like This
920
00:58:25,781 --> 00:58:29,345
is so interesting. I never knew this about the ocean that to me
921
00:58:29,405 --> 00:58:32,749
is like That's really cool because I could
922
00:58:33,029 --> 00:58:37,097
yeah, I could I the people that drink the Kool-Aid drink the Kool-Aid and that's great but
923
00:58:37,237 --> 00:58:40,659
that's the crazy thing about TikTok that's like I could reach
924
00:58:40,839 --> 00:58:44,041
a random person in random country that just
925
00:58:44,261 --> 00:58:47,602
learned something about the ocean and maybe that sparked a little something in
926
00:58:47,662 --> 00:58:51,084
them to just be more vigilant of their climate,
927
00:58:51,124 --> 00:58:54,626
their environment, the ocean around them like that is
928
00:58:56,754 --> 00:59:00,136
And it is. It's really interesting, especially like it's an opportunity for
929
00:59:00,196 --> 00:59:03,757
education. But again, you do it in a very entertaining way. You
930
00:59:03,797 --> 00:59:07,039
know, you feel I feel good after I listen to these
931
00:59:07,479 --> 00:59:10,680
these episodes, you know, like this. And I know like you're like, oh, that's
932
00:59:10,700 --> 00:59:13,841
what I want people to do. But, you know, when you talk about oceans, a lot
933
00:59:13,861 --> 00:59:17,503
of the times there's a lot of doom and gloom when we talk about oceans. Right.
934
00:59:17,543 --> 00:59:20,744
Like, you know, you can see the big documentaries that have been, you
935
00:59:20,784 --> 00:59:24,126
know, Emmy award winning documentaries. There's a lot of doom and gloom. I
936
00:59:24,166 --> 00:59:27,879
mean, I think David Attenborough had the
937
00:59:27,939 --> 00:59:31,200
world crying when he put out Blue Planet 2 and that
938
00:59:31,400 --> 00:59:35,242
poor sperm whale calf died of plastic pollution
939
00:59:39,504 --> 00:59:43,586
What are you doing to us? But
940
00:59:43,626 --> 00:59:46,948
when you are able to connect things that
941
00:59:46,988 --> 00:59:50,690
are interesting to people. We were talking about this before we pressed record. I was just watching
942
00:59:51,430 --> 00:59:54,772
your video on the Resolute Desk in the White House.
943
00:59:55,521 --> 00:59:58,924
never would have thought that had an ocean connection to
944
00:59:58,984 --> 01:00:02,566
it. And it's not directly with the ocean, but it's an important
945
01:00:02,927 --> 01:00:06,369
part of history, not only American history, but Canadian history,
946
01:00:06,589 --> 01:00:09,872
of people trying to find that Northwest Passage. And you get your
947
01:00:09,912 --> 01:00:13,094
map fix in there, and you talk about a different map, and you
948
01:00:13,134 --> 01:00:16,417
have those. I think it's really good. I think what you're able
949
01:00:16,477 --> 01:00:19,799
to do, and this is what Randy Olson has been talking about for years. He's
950
01:00:19,819 --> 01:00:23,262
a big science communication guy in marine science.
951
01:00:23,943 --> 01:00:27,346
And it's all about getting people's emotions involved. Getting not
952
01:00:27,386 --> 01:00:31,290
just necessarily the bad emotions, like the sad emotions, but getting the curiosity
953
01:00:31,330 --> 01:00:34,634
emotion. You got some good humor in there too. You
954
01:00:34,654 --> 01:00:39,098
got some funny bits that you do as well. But
955
01:00:39,238 --> 01:00:42,742
it's really great that you're able to Communicate that
956
01:00:42,902 --> 01:00:46,404
and it's not just straight-up facts. It's here's facts
957
01:00:46,444 --> 01:00:49,726
in an interesting way Did you ever think about this or did you know about
958
01:00:49,786 --> 01:00:53,008
this? And I've seen some creators do that, too there's another
959
01:00:53,048 --> 01:00:56,851
creator who does a lot about like the world wars and like historical wars
960
01:00:57,311 --> 01:01:00,973
and he has this way of like Really getting into
961
01:01:01,073 --> 01:01:04,375
it and he always starts did you know about this and did you
962
01:01:04,475 --> 01:01:07,938
know about it? It's just like and people like oh, this is really really
963
01:01:07,998 --> 01:01:11,114
interesting. I Yeah, yeah, it's cool to
964
01:01:11,234 --> 01:01:14,657
do that kind of stuff, but there's a lot of work involved in
965
01:01:14,697 --> 01:01:19,139
putting these videos together You can't do this in like five minutes Give
966
01:01:19,179 --> 01:01:22,321
me an average. I know it probably varies. But yeah,
967
01:01:22,381 --> 01:01:25,463
how long do you spend? With these is this a
968
01:01:27,524 --> 01:01:31,687
Yeah, so This is a great question. So I'll
969
01:01:31,707 --> 01:01:35,109
take you through the whole process because now I have like a whole way
970
01:01:35,169 --> 01:01:39,610
of doing it. Um, I will Either
971
01:01:39,730 --> 01:01:42,891
think of a question or someone will ask me a question. For
972
01:01:42,931 --> 01:01:46,751
example, like the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation.
973
01:01:46,811 --> 01:01:49,952
Someone will be like, what the heck is that? So I'll
974
01:01:49,972 --> 01:01:54,113
think of a question or someone will ask a question in the comments. I had
975
01:01:54,133 --> 01:01:57,653
a really popular one about what
976
01:01:58,254 --> 01:02:01,374
is the bottom of the sea floor? How deep is the sand? And I
977
01:02:01,394 --> 01:02:04,735
was like, oh, actually, it's not sand. It's dead
978
01:02:04,775 --> 01:02:09,446
organic matter. question and
979
01:02:09,646 --> 01:02:12,888
then I'll put together like the key. I'll break
980
01:02:12,929 --> 01:02:16,671
it down in terms of like what science, what physics and
981
01:02:16,711 --> 01:02:20,534
chemistry does a person need to know to appreciate how
982
01:02:20,594 --> 01:02:24,336
complex this is. Maybe they need to know about
983
01:02:24,956 --> 01:02:28,599
how organic matter decomposes. Maybe they need to know about
984
01:02:29,275 --> 01:02:32,618
how there's no light in the ocean. So I think about like, what are all the key
985
01:02:32,678 --> 01:02:36,061
facts that go into truly understanding this?
986
01:02:36,882 --> 01:02:40,806
Um, I have to find some decent figures that
987
01:02:40,846 --> 01:02:44,089
doesn't take too long. Um, but I'll
988
01:02:44,149 --> 01:02:47,292
make one sheet that has all the
989
01:02:47,332 --> 01:02:51,496
pictures that I would like to show and
990
01:02:51,636 --> 01:02:54,863
I'll just screenshot all the pictures. And then I think about, How
991
01:02:54,903 --> 01:02:58,264
am I going to say this? But what takes a long time is thinking of the hook, for
992
01:02:58,324 --> 01:03:01,926
sure. Yeah, and then
993
01:03:01,946 --> 01:03:05,847
filming it never takes more than 30 minutes, 20 minutes,
994
01:03:06,087 --> 01:03:09,548
30 minutes. I will say, I have a huge
995
01:03:09,648 --> 01:03:13,550
depth of prior knowledge, so there's very little that I really
996
01:03:13,610 --> 01:03:17,785
need to research when it comes to true science questions. I
997
01:03:17,925 --> 01:03:21,429
do love maritime history and naval history, and
998
01:03:21,449 --> 01:03:24,813
I think it's ocean exploration. I think that's a really important and cool
999
01:03:24,853 --> 01:03:28,317
way to bring people into oceanography is to
1000
01:03:28,337 --> 01:03:31,500
help us all appreciate how little we
1001
01:03:31,540 --> 01:03:34,663
know about the ocean, how long we have tried to
1002
01:03:34,703 --> 01:03:38,166
learn about it. So those take
1003
01:03:38,206 --> 01:03:41,307
a little bit more time, but I live and
1004
01:03:41,347 --> 01:03:44,628
breathe. I just finished a book about cod. I'm now
1005
01:03:44,708 --> 01:03:48,369
reading a book about how the US government in
1006
01:03:48,389 --> 01:03:52,550
the Cold War invested billions into oceanography. I'm always
1007
01:03:52,610 --> 01:03:55,691
reading things about the oceans to build up the
1008
01:03:55,731 --> 01:03:59,012
knowledge base and to find like, oh, I should tell people about this.
1009
01:03:59,172 --> 01:04:02,873
Yeah. So from start to finish, I'll
1010
01:04:02,933 --> 01:04:06,334
have a couple ideas brewing for
1011
01:04:07,163 --> 01:04:10,526
couple weeks at a time. But truthfully, the best
1012
01:04:10,586 --> 01:04:14,810
ideas and the best videos do come to me in a flash where
1013
01:04:14,990 --> 01:04:18,253
I'm like, Oh, uh, I need to tell the story
1014
01:04:18,293 --> 01:04:21,656
right now. For example, I've always been fascinated with
1015
01:04:21,696 --> 01:04:24,859
how Robert Ballard found the Titanic. Such a
1016
01:04:24,879 --> 01:04:28,122
cool story. Most people don't know that he was like actually looking for
1017
01:04:28,302 --> 01:04:32,111
remnants of nuclear submarines that had been lost from cold war. I
1018
01:04:32,131 --> 01:04:36,572
think that's such a cool story. It's always been in my head, but then like
1019
01:04:36,912 --> 01:04:40,213
I didn't know how do I bring people into that? And it
1020
01:04:40,253 --> 01:04:43,694
was the day before Thanksgiving and I was with my boyfriend's
1021
01:04:43,734 --> 01:04:47,455
family and they're asking me all these like great questions about oceanography
1022
01:04:47,495 --> 01:04:51,136
and stuff. And then it just came to me. I was like,
1023
01:04:52,116 --> 01:04:55,337
Oh, I should just like do this dumb hook where
1024
01:04:55,397 --> 01:04:58,518
I say that you should talk about this at Thanksgiving. Like I was
1025
01:04:58,558 --> 01:05:01,929
like, This is what you're going to talk about this Thanksgiving. And
1026
01:05:01,949 --> 01:05:05,832
that video got like three million views because people
1027
01:05:05,872 --> 01:05:09,075
were like, what? And then I'm like, the
1028
01:05:09,095 --> 01:05:13,018
Titanic sank, right? And so like, yeah,
1029
01:05:13,038 --> 01:05:16,381
but cover to cover, it'll take anywhere between like,
1030
01:05:17,002 --> 01:05:20,625
if it's a brilliant flash, it'll take an hour. If it's
1031
01:05:23,978 --> 01:05:27,260
Yeah, I can just imagine that Thanksgiving one just like
1032
01:05:27,340 --> 01:05:30,463
so yeah, you know the Titanic sank Did you guys know this like and
1033
01:05:30,483 --> 01:05:33,665
then I'll go through the story That's I feel like that's one of
1034
01:05:33,705 --> 01:05:36,867
the things that you just like that comes out of nowhere Like why would people want
1035
01:05:38,408 --> 01:05:41,931
Yeah, I'll stay Because if I started if
1036
01:05:41,991 --> 01:05:45,473
I started my videos being like let me tell you the history of
1037
01:05:46,134 --> 01:05:49,456
The discovery of the Titanic like yeah, I'm gonna keep the history nerds,
1038
01:05:53,540 --> 01:05:56,922
Like, how am I gonna swing this around? Yeah, and
1039
01:05:56,962 --> 01:06:00,684
do so in an exciting way too. Getting back to your point about my
1040
01:06:00,764 --> 01:06:04,386
attitude and my videos, I think I find
1041
01:06:05,267 --> 01:06:08,929
the gloom and doom, although definitely
1042
01:06:09,009 --> 01:06:12,471
warranted sometimes, right? It is heavy stuff
1043
01:06:12,631 --> 01:06:16,193
and it's concerning things. I
1044
01:06:16,933 --> 01:06:20,628
think about this a lot, which is that it's
1045
01:06:20,788 --> 01:06:24,552
not fear to a certain degree is not a
1046
01:06:24,632 --> 01:06:28,555
good motivational tool. And I,
1047
01:06:28,695 --> 01:06:31,838
so when I was at the second year of my PhD, the
1048
01:06:31,878 --> 01:06:35,121
first year of my PhD, I took a class that
1049
01:06:35,141 --> 01:06:38,945
was really interesting as a graduate level class on how
1050
01:06:39,185 --> 01:06:43,549
true leaders in the environmental or sustainability movements
1051
01:06:44,290 --> 01:06:48,152
have like, how do they do a good job? Because
1052
01:06:49,053 --> 01:06:53,115
from a marketing standpoint, climate change got
1053
01:06:53,155 --> 01:06:56,998
off on a bad foot. The
1054
01:06:57,078 --> 01:07:00,400
analogy was compared to like the space race. Let's
1055
01:07:00,420 --> 01:07:03,842
think about the space race for a second. That motivated all of America.
1056
01:07:04,543 --> 01:07:07,764
Like the public approval of spending billions of
1057
01:07:07,784 --> 01:07:10,906
dollars to send a man to space, which like I'm a
1058
01:07:12,026 --> 01:07:15,248
And it was unheard of at that point. Like it was like, can we really do this? Yeah,
1059
01:07:16,768 --> 01:07:20,710
Everyone was motivated. I was like, yeah, this is a crazy scientific
1060
01:07:20,770 --> 01:07:24,692
challenge to guest and public approval widespread.
1061
01:07:25,572 --> 01:07:29,614
Now I think about that all the time. Like getting
1062
01:07:29,634 --> 01:07:33,543
people excited is not for nothing. And even, You
1063
01:07:33,603 --> 01:07:37,305
know, I could paint all of my stuff in a way scarier light.
1064
01:07:37,986 --> 01:07:41,148
And even still, some people sometimes people are like, Why are you smiling when
1065
01:07:41,168 --> 01:07:44,730
you like say all this heavy stuff? But
1066
01:07:44,790 --> 01:07:48,292
I do think it's like, well, I don't want to, I don't think freaking
1067
01:07:48,332 --> 01:07:51,714
people out is the answer. I think getting people to appreciate like,
1068
01:07:55,016 --> 01:07:58,459
No, this is a big problem, but also here's here
1069
01:07:58,499 --> 01:08:02,182
why the complexity of this are so interesting. And maybe that inspires
1070
01:08:02,222 --> 01:08:05,405
you to just learn more. I think
1071
01:08:05,505 --> 01:08:09,188
learning is like the start of actually making change happen.
1072
01:08:09,208 --> 01:08:12,490
Yeah. But yeah, I mean, you can't market
1073
01:08:12,591 --> 01:08:15,993
everything in a positive light. I'm not saying like the positive thing.
1074
01:08:16,033 --> 01:08:19,056
It's not fun like the space race. But I
1075
01:08:19,576 --> 01:08:22,679
do go back to that all the time when I'm making my content. I'm like, how do
1076
01:08:22,719 --> 01:08:26,200
I talk about something that's like a little bit the Atlanta Mariano overturning
1077
01:08:26,220 --> 01:08:29,453
circulation. That's scary. That would be really freaky if that shut
1078
01:08:29,493 --> 01:08:32,554
down. But instead of saying that, I'm
1079
01:08:32,574 --> 01:08:36,134
going to say, this is a really interesting, complex
1080
01:08:36,215 --> 01:08:39,595
phenomenon that goes on in our climate, and you
1081
01:08:39,635 --> 01:08:42,736
should know what it does. Instead of if you want to get it.
1082
01:08:42,756 --> 01:08:45,956
Instead of just being fearful that somebody's thing is going to stop and the world is going
1083
01:08:46,936 --> 01:08:50,397
Yes. Yes. Yes. Because I feel like that kind of communication has
1084
01:08:51,357 --> 01:08:55,138
only gotten more polarized, as with everything, where
1085
01:08:55,178 --> 01:08:58,561
it's like, I can't believe you don't care about this. This is so bad. And
1086
01:08:58,581 --> 01:09:01,965
then the other side being like, well, you know, this isn't
1087
01:09:02,025 --> 01:09:05,109
our fault. Why are you saying the world is an ending data that I'm like, how
1088
01:09:05,149 --> 01:09:08,353
do we lower the volume? Yeah, I'd be like, talk about
1089
01:09:08,373 --> 01:09:11,677
why this is interesting. People can draw their own conclusions and
1090
01:09:14,210 --> 01:09:17,612
For sure. And especially if you're just educating, here's the process. Here's
1091
01:09:17,652 --> 01:09:20,955
how it works. And here's what people are saying is slowing
1092
01:09:20,975 --> 01:09:24,998
down and what that means. And then you can just
1093
01:09:25,038 --> 01:09:28,220
explain it a little bit more instead of, I mean, that headline was
1094
01:09:28,260 --> 01:09:31,562
fearful. I remember that headline coming. It wasn't only on CNN. It
1095
01:09:33,283 --> 01:09:36,746
Everywhere. Yeah. And that headline seems to come up every once in a while. It's
1096
01:09:38,787 --> 01:09:42,090
Every time a new study comes out, they're like, let's swipe this
1097
01:09:42,210 --> 01:09:45,631
up. scary the crap out of everybody, which
1098
01:09:46,111 --> 01:09:49,492
again, it's like I, you know, and part of it too is like you
1099
01:09:49,552 --> 01:09:52,993
can't, I don't believe scientists can be frustrated at people for
1100
01:09:53,053 --> 01:09:56,194
not having the correct amount of empathy for a
1101
01:09:56,234 --> 01:09:59,775
problem if they didn't educate people in the first place. Like
1102
01:10:00,095 --> 01:10:03,216
you can't, you know, you need to meet people in the
1103
01:10:03,256 --> 01:10:06,497
middle. And if you're not going to, then I don't think you have a right to
1104
01:10:06,537 --> 01:10:10,067
be so frustrated because not everyone got a PhD in
1105
01:10:10,527 --> 01:10:13,692
climate science you know so you need to like meet somewhere in
1106
01:10:13,712 --> 01:10:17,237
the middle and I think the education is the first step so it's I so
1107
01:10:17,317 --> 01:10:20,582
enjoy being here at this point where I can like help
1108
01:10:21,535 --> 01:10:24,817
Well, I'll tell you, we love it. I'm gonna say that
1109
01:10:24,957 --> 01:10:28,139
from your audience as a representative from your audience, not that
1110
01:10:28,159 --> 01:10:31,260
I represent your audience, loves it. And then you can tell just by the
1111
01:10:31,320 --> 01:10:34,482
views and the consistent views that you're getting and the increased views that you're
1112
01:10:34,502 --> 01:10:37,964
getting on a regular basis. It's just absolutely wonderful to
1113
01:10:38,004 --> 01:10:41,205
watch you work, to be able to... you know, talk about
1114
01:10:41,265 --> 01:10:44,366
science in the way that you do. It's so much fun. Like I said, I'm a
1115
01:10:44,446 --> 01:10:48,026
huge, huge fan. And like just hearing your PhD and
1116
01:10:48,106 --> 01:10:51,547
hearing the enthusiasm that you have for science in
1117
01:10:51,647 --> 01:10:55,308
general and science for eutrophication and sort
1118
01:10:55,328 --> 01:10:58,668
of coastal eutrophication, I'm looking forward to seeing what you're
1119
01:10:58,788 --> 01:11:02,249
able to do and what you're going to be able to do with the next job
1120
01:11:02,289 --> 01:11:05,589
that you have. You know, you just finished your PhD like three months
1121
01:11:09,911 --> 01:11:13,561
And so I'm going to ask the fun questions, like
1122
01:11:17,402 --> 01:11:24,024
I think
1123
01:11:24,824 --> 01:11:28,385
Um, I know for a fact
1124
01:11:28,586 --> 01:11:32,167
that I think my, my skills, you know, most people
1125
01:11:32,507 --> 01:11:35,548
that know me personally, they're like, so you're going to be a
1126
01:11:35,608 --> 01:11:38,708
professor, right? Um, like, Oh, so you're going to
1127
01:11:38,809 --> 01:11:42,550
teach for the rest of your life, which I mean, in a perfect world,
1128
01:11:42,950 --> 01:11:46,319
if I could just make interesting tech talks, like I'd
1129
01:11:46,339 --> 01:11:49,562
be so happy doing that. But as of right now, it
1130
01:11:49,582 --> 01:11:52,846
doesn't really pay the bills. And I do want to
1131
01:11:52,926 --> 01:11:56,370
put my efforts to work on
1132
01:11:56,390 --> 01:11:59,974
a specific project. So for example, I've been really interested
1133
01:12:00,014 --> 01:12:03,445
in offshore wind. really interested in offshore wind. I think that
1134
01:12:03,505 --> 01:12:07,248
is the direction. Energy is critical to everybody.
1135
01:12:07,268 --> 01:12:10,470
We will run out of fossil fuel. How do
1136
01:12:10,490 --> 01:12:13,793
we find a good way to use ocean as an energy
1137
01:12:13,833 --> 01:12:16,936
resource without like causing any detrimental impacts? I
1138
01:12:16,996 --> 01:12:20,278
am so fascinated with that. So for example, like an
1139
01:12:20,378 --> 01:12:24,542
ideal job I applied for a couple months ago was
1140
01:12:24,782 --> 01:12:28,125
offshore wind environmental expert. Like I would love
1141
01:12:28,165 --> 01:12:31,577
to help you know, site offshore wind farms, I'd
1142
01:12:31,597 --> 01:12:35,685
love to be there for the full process and understand the oceanography,
1143
01:12:39,594 --> 01:12:42,956
Even just spatial analysis of how to locate them. Yeah.
1144
01:12:43,217 --> 01:12:46,339
Yes, exactly. You know, how far can you be from shore? Will the
1145
01:12:46,379 --> 01:12:49,501
other turbines interact with each other? Do they interact with any
1146
01:12:54,264 --> 01:12:57,866
Exactly. I don't want to interact with fishing. So those questions fascinate
1147
01:12:57,886 --> 01:13:01,189
me. I'd love to do something like that. Yeah. That's
1148
01:13:01,209 --> 01:13:05,271
where my aim is right now. So currently I'm living in Boulder, Colorado.
1149
01:13:10,255 --> 01:13:13,541
I loved Southern California, but I spent pretty much my entire life
1150
01:13:13,581 --> 01:13:17,209
there. I like grew up there. I went to UCSB, I went to UCLA,
1151
01:13:17,249 --> 01:13:20,431
I've lived in San Diego, and I just wanted to see
1152
01:13:20,472 --> 01:13:23,874
something new. Boulder, Colorado has the
1153
01:13:24,395 --> 01:13:27,777
National Renewable Energy Lab, which is the Department
1154
01:13:27,797 --> 01:13:31,200
of Energy, the U.S. Department of Energy, that's their primary renewable
1155
01:13:31,240 --> 01:13:34,602
energy research facility. So that is
1156
01:13:34,682 --> 01:13:37,925
out here. That's honestly my top choice. I would love, love, love
1157
01:13:37,945 --> 01:13:41,447
to work there. There's a big NOAA office
1158
01:13:41,467 --> 01:13:45,799
here, the Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. I'm already
1159
01:13:45,839 --> 01:13:50,583
in the process for interviewing for a job there. There's
1160
01:13:50,623 --> 01:13:55,087
the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Yeah, crossing my fingers. So
1161
01:13:55,107 --> 01:13:59,250
it's kind of surprising. A lot of people are like, why are you in Colorado as an oceanographer? There's
1162
01:13:59,290 --> 01:14:02,433
actually a shocking amount of atmospheric and oceanic science that goes on
1163
01:14:03,491 --> 01:14:07,132
Yeah, and I was just gonna say there's like a big like ocean
1164
01:14:07,412 --> 01:14:10,673
Proponent there like just in terms of the people I mean,
1165
01:14:10,813 --> 01:14:14,494
it's very similar to California fine where there's a lot of people who are nature focused
1166
01:14:14,594 --> 01:14:17,734
You know Rockies hiking that kind of stuff, but also there are
1167
01:14:17,754 --> 01:14:21,435
a lot of ocean advocates in In Colorado,
1168
01:14:21,515 --> 01:14:24,996
so you're not alone like in terms of that. Yeah, let your level
1169
01:14:25,116 --> 01:14:28,317
of oceanography knowledge might be you might be
1170
01:14:33,678 --> 01:14:36,999
I'd also do a lot of science communication, and it's been really fun, at least these
1171
01:14:37,039 --> 01:14:40,220
last two months, to give it all the time I can. But at the same time, I think it'll naturally
1172
01:14:40,240 --> 01:14:59,070
grow over time. I'm at this interesting point, though, where I'm like, well, Do
1173
01:14:59,190 --> 01:15:02,873
I grow it more and like how much do I grow it? And
1174
01:15:03,454 --> 01:15:07,017
I know there's an audience for it. Um, you
1175
01:15:07,037 --> 01:15:10,600
know, another like pipe dream or like offshoot
1176
01:15:10,720 --> 01:15:14,203
life, I would love to like have an
1177
01:15:14,363 --> 01:15:17,726
ocean show someday on TV or be like
1178
01:15:17,786 --> 01:15:21,530
a talking head for discovery or,
1179
01:15:21,550 --> 01:15:25,082
you know, I'd love to continue to like educate
1180
01:15:25,102 --> 01:15:28,704
people about the ocean on a broader scale. And I
1181
01:15:28,784 --> 01:15:31,845
do, like similar to my PhD, I'm like, I know that'll come. I
1182
01:15:33,046 --> 01:15:36,588
know I can make it there. Yes, exactly. I'm manifesting
1183
01:15:36,648 --> 01:15:39,809
it. But in the meantime, I don't think I have
1184
01:15:39,849 --> 01:15:43,331
the chops to do only science communication, to
1185
01:15:43,371 --> 01:15:46,625
be self-employed. I A
1186
01:15:50,189 --> 01:15:53,432
Yeah, hey, I get it.
1187
01:15:53,612 --> 01:15:58,237
It's a long process. It could be a traumatic process, looking
1188
01:15:58,277 --> 01:16:01,620
at all the stuff that you have to do. A lot of people say it's basically working two
1189
01:16:01,660 --> 01:16:04,827
jobs in one, maybe even plus that, like even more. You know,
1190
01:16:04,847 --> 01:16:08,410
it's a lot to handle for anybody, and you
1191
01:16:08,430 --> 01:16:12,033
did that. Plus, you developed a science communication channel that
1192
01:16:12,593 --> 01:16:15,916
is blowing up, and it continues to blow up. And I'm
1193
01:16:15,956 --> 01:16:19,058
looking forward to seeing what you're up to next. Like, it's going to be
1194
01:16:19,258 --> 01:16:22,461
fingers crossed for all the opportunities that you're involved with now, and
1195
01:16:22,661 --> 01:16:25,983
hopefully it continues. And hopefully your
1196
01:16:26,003 --> 01:16:29,344
enthusiasm for the science communication continues as well, because
1197
01:16:29,404 --> 01:16:32,745
it's been a pleasure to watch those videos. I enjoy it,
1198
01:16:32,765 --> 01:16:36,067
and I'm sure the 7 million people that watch your
1199
01:16:39,477 --> 01:16:42,760
Thank you, yes. Of anything, that is
1200
01:16:44,682 --> 01:16:47,925
Yeah, I think so. I think that's what it sounds like.
1201
01:16:47,965 --> 01:16:51,469
But honestly, Paige, it's been a pleasure to have you on the podcast
1202
01:16:51,509 --> 01:16:54,692
and to get to know you more. And I look forward to having you
1203
01:16:54,712 --> 01:16:57,875
back on when you get that job or once you
1204
01:16:57,895 --> 01:17:01,479
develop the science more and the science communication more.
1205
01:17:02,319 --> 01:17:05,402
Yeah, you know once you let people know how they can get a hold of you. There's the
1206
01:17:06,363 --> 01:17:10,107
Which yeah, just like let them know the handle and how they can look you up Yeah,
1207
01:17:10,127 --> 01:17:14,731
the handle for the tick-tock is little LIL ocean
1208
01:17:14,831 --> 01:17:18,755
page or you could look up PhD page II And
1209
01:17:19,015 --> 01:17:22,238
I also have an Instagram that is the same
1210
01:17:22,278 --> 01:17:25,927
handle LIL ocean page And
1211
01:17:25,947 --> 01:17:29,810
I'm starting to put my videos on YouTube Shorts, so you can find me there. And
1212
01:17:29,870 --> 01:17:33,493
who knows, maybe I'll get bored and actually start making long-form YouTube
1213
01:17:33,513 --> 01:17:36,695
videos someday. I'm not sure if I'll ever
1214
01:17:36,715 --> 01:17:39,957
do that. Maybe a podcast in the future. Part of me wants to, so who knows what
1215
01:17:41,519 --> 01:17:44,701
Love it. Love it. I can see story time with Paige, ocean story time with Paige.
1216
01:17:48,804 --> 01:17:52,046
Well, Paige, it's been a pleasure. We're looking forward to seeing what you're up to next.
1217
01:17:57,272 --> 01:18:00,653
Thank you, Paige, for joining us today on the How to Protect the Ocean podcast to
1218
01:18:00,693 --> 01:18:04,094
talk about not only your PhD work, but your science communication work. I
1219
01:18:04,134 --> 01:18:07,876
think it's really important for scientists to have both, sort
1220
01:18:07,896 --> 01:18:11,217
of that skill set, using the skills that they have, using their personality to
1221
01:18:11,297 --> 01:18:14,818
bring out the messaging that they want to bring out. And that's something
1222
01:18:15,219 --> 01:18:18,500
that Paige does. So again, her handle is at
1223
01:18:19,200 --> 01:18:22,922
LilOceanPage, so L-I-L-O-C-E-A-N. Ocean page
1224
01:18:23,022 --> 01:18:26,185
PA IGE obviously all one word you can
1225
01:18:26,225 --> 01:18:29,789
go on tick tock you can also go on Instagram to follow her I highly suggest
1226
01:18:29,809 --> 01:18:33,092
that you do She's gonna be up to some pretty incredible things through
1227
01:18:33,212 --> 01:18:36,715
her career. It's just she's just scratching the surface literally
1228
01:18:37,036 --> 01:18:40,098
just dipping a toe in and I can't wait till she dives in and and we get to
1229
01:18:40,158 --> 01:18:43,580
hear all about it. So if you have any questions or comments about
1230
01:18:43,820 --> 01:18:47,402
this episode, please feel free to leave a comment
1231
01:18:47,702 --> 01:18:50,863
on, if you're watching this on Spotify on the video, or if you're just listening to
1232
01:18:50,883 --> 01:18:54,465
it, you can leave comments. You can also leave a comment on the YouTube video and
1233
01:18:54,605 --> 01:18:57,906
you can get ahold of me on Instagram at HowToProtectTheOcean, that's
1234
01:18:58,126 --> 01:19:01,288
at HowToProtectTheOcean on Instagram, just DM me, I'd
1235
01:19:01,428 --> 01:19:05,190
love to hear your feedback on this episode and any other episode of
1236
01:19:05,230 --> 01:19:21,212
the podcast. feel free to reach out I
1237
01:19:21,232 --> 01:19:24,895
appreciate Paige reaching out, and I would love to hear from you. Whether
1238
01:19:24,915 --> 01:19:28,398
you want to be on the podcast or not, because you've got something interesting that you think is interesting, or
1239
01:19:28,418 --> 01:19:31,621
you just want to give feedback or talk about the ocean, this
1240
01:19:31,661 --> 01:19:35,224
is where we start that conversation. And we did a great job doing it today. I
1241
01:19:35,264 --> 01:19:38,687
want to hear from you what you think about the ocean, and what you would like to hear more
1242
01:19:38,747 --> 01:19:41,890
about, or what you would like to talk about. Hit me up
1243
01:19:42,110 --> 01:19:45,474
at HowToProtectTheOcean on Instagram. Thank you so much for
1244
01:19:45,534 --> 01:19:49,299
joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Have
1245
01:19:49,320 --> 01:19:52,404
a great day. We'll talk to you next time. Of course, my name is Andrew Lewin. Have a