Move your cursor across the canopy — every survey in this portfolio starts with looking closer at what's actually underwater.
From kelp canopies to coral reefs to the animals that depend on both — this is the field data behind the write-ups.
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I'm a marine biology student who treats the water column like a manuscript — every depth zone is a chapter, and my job is to log what's actually down there before I trust a single conclusion.
The reef doesn't round its numbers. I'd rather run one more transect at 4am before the tide turns than publish a count I only half-trust.
Survey the site first-hand — transects, quadrats, visual census — before a single sample leaves the water.
Collect eDNA, tissue, and water-chemistry data with strict chain-of-custody logging.
Run qPCR assays, photo-quadrat image analysis, and acoustic detection logs back at the bench.
Turn raw counts into a model an advisor, an agency, or a reef manager can actually act on.
Keep scrolling — the same five depth zones every dive, tag, and eDNA sample in this portfolio is filed under.
Kelp canopies and coral reefs — where almost every survey in this portfolio actually starts.
Light fades to blue-black; acoustic tags start to matter more than eyesight.
No sunlight reaches this deep — bioluminescence becomes the water column's own language.
Near-freezing, crushing pressure, and some of the slowest metabolisms on the planet.
Ocean trenches — the least-observed habitat on Earth, mapped one submersible dive at a time.
Tilt a card — every study here started with a dive log before it ever reached a dataset.
Ran quarterly canopy-density transects across the Point Loma kelp forest to track recovery after the 2014–16 marine heatwave dieback.
Photo-quadrat monitoring of thermally stressed coral colonies at the Moorea Coral Reef LTER site to flag early resilience signals.
Tagged and tracked the resident green sea turtle population in San Diego Bay's warm-water outfall habitat across two seasons.
Built a water-sample eDNA baseline across La Jolla Cove's kelp beds and tide pools to catch species a visual census would miss.
Logged pod counts and calf ratios during the winter gray whale migration from the cliffside observation station at Scripps.
Sampled Lingulodinium polyedra bloom density at La Jolla Shores during a recurring bioluminescent red tide event.
Supporting a faculty-led reef resilience project — photo-quadrat processing, eDNA lab work, and dive-log data management.
Ran SCUBA transects and canopy-density surveys to track kelp forest recovery after a multi-year marine heatwave.
Ran weekly lab sections on invertebrate taxonomy, water chemistry, and dissection technique for 50+ undergraduates.
American Academy of Underwater Sciences
2024
PADI
2022
NOLS / American Red Cross
2024
Scripps Marine Facility
2024
Marisol's transect data was the cleanest in the cohort — every count logged with the depth, time, and visibility conditions right beside it. No guesswork.
She's the diver who checks her own gauge twice and still surfaces with a full data sheet. That's exactly who you want running a transect at 60 feet.
Marisol caught a bleaching signal in the Moorea data two weeks before the rest of us noticed it in the field. That's the kind of eye you can't fully teach.
Field technician roles, research collaborations, or a dataset that needs a second pair of eyes — send the brief.