What is your background and what are you studying or working on at the moment?
My high school experience was fairly generalized, but I wanted to get more hands-on skills for fabrication and design, so I decided to study engineering in undergrad. I got the chance to study tons of math and physics as well as to design and build things (like a recumbent bicycle!). I also did some design work for an underwater mass spectrometer in a deep-sea microbiology lab (the Girguis lab), which was my first introduction to ocean research. I ended up getting my B.S. in mechanical engineering in 2020, though by that point I had started to form an interest in science. I came to SIO in September of that year to start the Physical Oceanography program, which appealed to me because the first year of courses sounded like a good entry into the world of scientific research.
I am now working with a wonderful group of people at SIO including Amy Waterhouse, Mark Merrifield, Peter Franks, Jen Mackinnon, and many others at other institutions. I am using data from the Inner Shelf Dynamics Experiment to piece together how internal waves affect the momentum budget of the West Coast inner shelf. There have been a lot of studies on this region on the East Coast, but the other side of the continent is less well understood and has rather different dynamics. It sounds somewhat distant from real-life applications, but understanding the role that different forces play in the area can be important for predicting ocean flows and circulation, which in turn can help understand coastal problems, for example, red tides and where they will end up.
What keeps you excited and interested in working in the field of oceanography?
The first thing that comes to mind is the sea-going part of oceanography. I love spending time on ships and the camaraderie that comes with working with so many dedicated people. It’s like summer camp for scientists, only with 12-hour shifts! It’s also a great opportunity to pick people’s brains for problems they may have seen in the past or have a different perspective on, in a way that’s much less structured than a meeting or a conference. Plus getting to collect the data to work on is very exciting.
Another element that’s really exciting is the sheer number of open questions. There are so many little contradictions and unknowns that need to be answered and that can be a really rewarding experience. For example, I am using model data, objectively mapped data, and observational data in combination since each one provides a piece of an answer to my question about internal waves and cross-shelf dynamics. Sometimes things seem fully understood (like in the model) or utterly baffling (like in the data) but turn out to be very different from our initial assumptions, and it’s the oceanographer’s job to tease out what’s actually happening.
When you were a kid, did you expect to be a scientist or engineer?
I wanted to be all kinds of things as a kid, from a singer to a doctor, but I was also always interested in water. I grew up on an island taking a boat to school, I canoed through the Canadian wilderness, I was a swim instructor and lifeguard, etc. Once I got to my teenage years though I realized that I wanted to answer questions and solve problems for practical applications. I decided on mechanical engineering in my first year of undergrad because I enjoyed making things with my hands, and I liked being able to see with my own eyes how things work. My two interests didn’t click until my third year of university when I discovered the field of oceanography, and I realized that there was a job that involved answering questions, using cool tools, and spending time on the water.
Were there any particular things from your childhood that drew you to study the ocean?
Like I mentioned, I grew up on an island, the Toronto Islands on Lake Ontario. One thing that always interested me as a child was how different the ocean was from the lake, how the waves were different, the salt felt different, the existence of tides, etc. It was such a different experience between the ocean on holiday and the lake the rest of the time.
The lake would behave differently every year too in ways that would affect us on the ground: there would be flooding one year and not another, the lake would freeze solid or not, etc. Thanks to this variability a lot of discussion would be about how the winter conditions far away from us would affect water levels in the summer, or how strong the winds were once it started to get cold enough to freeze. I think that was when I started to be interested in the “why” of the bodies of water in my life.
What skills or abilities do you think are useful when going into oceanography?
I think there are a lot of skills that can get you through, since everyone has a pretty different experience. One that is immediately obvious is persistence, since a lot of the time things just don’t work and you have to believe in yourself enough to keep trying. Along with that, and maybe a little contradictorily, is knowing when to stop or pivot, which is maybe the skill of self-awareness? At the end of the day I think someone researching oceanography needs the confidence to keep going in a direction they believe in, as well as the confidence to decide they want to try something else. Then if someone has good time management, math skills, etc. that’s going to be helpful, but that’s generally true for any STEM subject. In my opinion oceanography is uniquely frustrating (and rewarding) because there is so much to study and so little known, so there are a lot of potential paths to go down.
What does a typical workday look like for you?
I usually start by deciding whether I want to work from home or from the office that day, though typically that’s determined by external factors (like meetings, seminars, classes, etc.). In the morning I typically try to start by catching up on emails and then (hopefully) finishing whatever data analysis I started the evening prior, now with fresh eyes. After lunch I do my second email check of the day, and then either go back to data analysis or do something logistical if I am getting too deeply frustrated. If I am really excited about a problem I’ll keep going into the evening, otherwise I’ll sleep on it. Of course this routine is typically disrupted by things happening around the office, grad school is a hectic time whether you like it or not.
What drew you to Scripps?
I had honestly never even heard of SIO until close to the end of undergrad, and then I applied because it sounded like they were open to those who were still figuring out where they wanted to focus their research. I really wanted that first year of coursework in physical oceanography since my background was in engineering, a degree which is useful but not sufficient for ocean science. I also liked that I could pick an advisor at the end of that first year once I had a better understanding of what I liked. I was also seduced by the amount of sea-going that appeared to happen at SIO, which I was very confident I wanted to do.
Is there a particular scientist/person/thing that inspires you?
This one is always hard for me because different people inspire me in different ways. I think someone whom I admire and respect hugely is my partner Alex. He is always interested in learning and never lets challenges at work prevent him from doing projects on the side that interest him. He thinks through problems carefully and always takes his responsibilities seriously. He definitely inspires me to be at his level professionally.
Do you have a fun fact that you'd like to share that not everyone knows about you?
I can speak Spanish with a French accent!