As part of a high school science project, my niece interviewed me about my work as an oceanographer. A summary of that interview is below.
What inspired you to go into the field of oceanography?
The short answer is that I simply love the ocean! I spent my teenage years living in Victoria surrounded by the ocean. Before that, we would often go on family holidays to the seaside, where my brother and I would happily spend hours jumping in the waves and exploring tide pools.
The longer answer is a little bit more complicated. "Oceanography" was never really something that I knew could be a career when I was in school. I did, however, always gravitate toward science and math as my favourite subjects; in particular physics which really made sense to me. When it came time to choose subjects at University, I knew I wanted to study physics, and it happened that UVic offered a lot of combined physics degrees, including a joint major in physics and oceanography. Given my aptitude for physics and my love for the ocean, I thought, if nothing else, it would be a fun pursuit. From my first class there, I was hooked.
How long were you in school, and what schools did you attend?
I completed 10 years of post-secondary education.
I got my bachelor of science in physics and ocean/atmospheric science at the University of Victoria (4 years). I then went to Dalhousie University in Halifax, NS to get my Master's in Oceanography (2 years). The final four years were spent in pursuit of my PhD at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.
The nice thing about oceanography is that, unlike some fields in science, you don't need a PhD unless you particularly want to work at a University. I know a lot of people who got jobs right away with bachelor’s and master's degrees. I chose to continue to do a PhD more out of a love for learning and research rather than out of necessity.
What does your day-to-day work look like at your current position at UCSC?
My work probably looks a bit different than what you might expect for an oceanographer. I don’t spend much time at sea...at least not for work!
Instead, I work as an ocean modeller. Because the ocean is so large, it is impossible to really measure it properly. Scientists will go out on ships and collect samples, but as you can imagine, those aren't able to cover much of the ocean's surface (let alone its depths). Certain technologies can help - like autonomous vehicles and satellites - but they still can't tell us everything. That is why we use models of the ocean; we can use simulations to essentially "fill in the gaps" and perform virtual experiments that test different hypotheses within our computer laboratory. That being said, observations are still really important. They help us to know whether our model makes sense; if the model and observations don’t agree, the model is most likely wrong.
I work with a model called ROMS (stands for the Regional Ocean Modelling System), which has been jointly developed by researchers from around the world. At its core is the physical model, which uses mathematics to simulate things like tides and currents. In addition to the physics, there is also the biogeochemical (BGC) component. It deals with the interactions between the biology (e.g., plankton) and the chemistry of the ocean (e.g., nutrients), relating the different components through the nitrogen and carbon cycles.
I am currently running ROMS to simulate the ocean along the west coast of the United States, all the way from the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the Baja Peninsula, looking to understand the interactions between the ocean dynamics and the biogeochemical cycles in that region. Within these simulations, I can change different parameters to test different things. For example, “what happens to the distribution of the phytoplankton if the chemical composition or temperature of the ocean changes?”.
What is the coolest thing you have discovered through your research?
It is not so much something I have discovered, but have come to learn and appreciate along the way: the oceans are so vast, yet at the same time, the global ocean - and even the Earth as a whole - is so connected. Ocean water that sinks to the seafloor in the North Atlantic will end up in the Pacific after a few hundred years. At the same time, ocean temperatures off Chile can affect the weather in Europe. It is really awe-inspiring and I can’t help but marvel at it.
Do you have any inspiring words for those who aspire to be oceanographers?
Dive in! (pun intended)
It is a really interesting, interdisciplinary field of study, and there is still so much that we don’t know. It is often said that we know more about the rest of our solar system than we do our oceans. While I don’t know if that is 100% true, there are still so many unanswered questions in oceanography that make it a really exciting field to work in.
Any additional comments?
One thing that I think is important to realize is that “oceanography” is a really broad area, and there isn’t one particular route to becoming an oceanographer, nor is there a set job description. I, for example, got into oceanography via physics and now sit somewhere in between physics, biology, and chemistry (and even a bit of computer science) in my research. My twin brother, on the other hand, is a biochemical oceanographer who studied biology in university and splits his time between taking water samples at sea, and analyzing those samples in the lab. Other friends and colleagues are chemists, geologists, and engineers by training.
For anyone interested in oceanography, I would say focus on an area of the “core” sciences that you particularly enjoy. Biology, chemistry, physics, geology … they all contribute to different branches of oceanography.
What inspired you to go into the field of oceanography?
The short answer is that I simply love the ocean! I spent my teenage years living in Victoria surrounded by the ocean. Before that, we would often go on family holidays to the seaside, where my brother and I would happily spend hours jumping in the waves and exploring tide pools.
The longer answer is a little bit more complicated. "Oceanography" was never really something that I knew could be a career when I was in school. I did, however, always gravitate toward science and math as my favourite subjects; in particular physics which really made sense to me. When it came time to choose subjects at University, I knew I wanted to study physics, and it happened that UVic offered a lot of combined physics degrees, including a joint major in physics and oceanography. Given my aptitude for physics and my love for the ocean, I thought, if nothing else, it would be a fun pursuit. From my first class there, I was hooked.
How long were you in school, and what schools did you attend?
I completed 10 years of post-secondary education.
I got my bachelor of science in physics and ocean/atmospheric science at the University of Victoria (4 years). I then went to Dalhousie University in Halifax, NS to get my Master's in Oceanography (2 years). The final four years were spent in pursuit of my PhD at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.
The nice thing about oceanography is that, unlike some fields in science, you don't need a PhD unless you particularly want to work at a University. I know a lot of people who got jobs right away with bachelor’s and master's degrees. I chose to continue to do a PhD more out of a love for learning and research rather than out of necessity.
What does your day-to-day work look like at your current position at UCSC?
My work probably looks a bit different than what you might expect for an oceanographer. I don’t spend much time at sea...at least not for work!
Instead, I work as an ocean modeller. Because the ocean is so large, it is impossible to really measure it properly. Scientists will go out on ships and collect samples, but as you can imagine, those aren't able to cover much of the ocean's surface (let alone its depths). Certain technologies can help - like autonomous vehicles and satellites - but they still can't tell us everything. That is why we use models of the ocean; we can use simulations to essentially "fill in the gaps" and perform virtual experiments that test different hypotheses within our computer laboratory. That being said, observations are still really important. They help us to know whether our model makes sense; if the model and observations don’t agree, the model is most likely wrong.
I work with a model called ROMS (stands for the Regional Ocean Modelling System), which has been jointly developed by researchers from around the world. At its core is the physical model, which uses mathematics to simulate things like tides and currents. In addition to the physics, there is also the biogeochemical (BGC) component. It deals with the interactions between the biology (e.g., plankton) and the chemistry of the ocean (e.g., nutrients), relating the different components through the nitrogen and carbon cycles.
I am currently running ROMS to simulate the ocean along the west coast of the United States, all the way from the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the Baja Peninsula, looking to understand the interactions between the ocean dynamics and the biogeochemical cycles in that region. Within these simulations, I can change different parameters to test different things. For example, “what happens to the distribution of the phytoplankton if the chemical composition or temperature of the ocean changes?”.
What is the coolest thing you have discovered through your research?
It is not so much something I have discovered, but have come to learn and appreciate along the way: the oceans are so vast, yet at the same time, the global ocean - and even the Earth as a whole - is so connected. Ocean water that sinks to the seafloor in the North Atlantic will end up in the Pacific after a few hundred years. At the same time, ocean temperatures off Chile can affect the weather in Europe. It is really awe-inspiring and I can’t help but marvel at it.
Do you have any inspiring words for those who aspire to be oceanographers?
Dive in! (pun intended)
It is a really interesting, interdisciplinary field of study, and there is still so much that we don’t know. It is often said that we know more about the rest of our solar system than we do our oceans. While I don’t know if that is 100% true, there are still so many unanswered questions in oceanography that make it a really exciting field to work in.
Any additional comments?
One thing that I think is important to realize is that “oceanography” is a really broad area, and there isn’t one particular route to becoming an oceanographer, nor is there a set job description. I, for example, got into oceanography via physics and now sit somewhere in between physics, biology, and chemistry (and even a bit of computer science) in my research. My twin brother, on the other hand, is a biochemical oceanographer who studied biology in university and splits his time between taking water samples at sea, and analyzing those samples in the lab. Other friends and colleagues are chemists, geologists, and engineers by training.
For anyone interested in oceanography, I would say focus on an area of the “core” sciences that you particularly enjoy. Biology, chemistry, physics, geology … they all contribute to different branches of oceanography.