During the Cay Sal Bank Mission, we conducted a series of interviews with some of the team members while aboard the M/Y Golden Shadow to learn more about their backgrounds, as well as get their reflections on their role during the mission and why they feel this work is important.

Coral Reef Expert: Dr. Judy Lang

Judy Lang is a reef biologist with broad experience in Caribbean coral taxonomy, behavior and ecology, plus exhibits design and outreach education. She holds a Ph.D. in Biology from Yale University and a B.Sc. in Chemistry and Zoology from the former University College of the West Indies (since University of the West Indies). Retired from the University of Texas at Austin where she was a museum curator and lecturer, she provides training/conducts surveys for the AGRRA project, and is traveling an exhibit publicizing efforts to conserve Caribbean-area reefs and coastal communities. Read Interview…

Living Oceans Foundation Fellow: Jeremy Kerr

Jeremy enrolled at California State University Monterey Bay (CSUMB) to obtain a Bachelor’s in Science (B.S.), and eventually finished with a double major in Mathematics and Earth Systems Science and Policy. After completing his Bachelor of Science, he began an internship at NASA’s Ames Research Center helping on a project to remotely-sense coral reef communities, and enrolled in the Coastal and Watershed Science and Policy program at CSUMB to obtain a Master’s in Science (M.S.). Currently, he works in Dr. Sam Purkis’ Remote Sensing Lab at Nova Southeastern University’s Oceanographic Center in Florida while he pursues a Doctorate (Ph.D.) in Oceanography/Marine Biology. His work for the Global Reef Expedition will form part of his PhD research, which focuses on the observation of reefal landscapes from satellites and the landscapes’ evolution under various environmental conditions over timescales of decades to millennia. Read Interview…

Living Oceans Foundation Fellow: Sonia Bejarano

Dr. Sonia Bejerano graduated as a Marine Biologist at the University of Jorge Tadeo Lozano (Colombia) in 2001 and then worked for 3 and a half years as a research scientist of the National Coral Reef Monitoring program at INVEMAR (Colombia). In January 2010 Dr. Bejarano completed her PhD at the University of Exeter (UK) working under the supervision of Professor Peter Mumby. As a post-doctoral fellow in the Global Reef Expedition, Dr. Bejarano will have a unique opportunity to continue investigating fish grazing as a source of reef resilience, and its variability across spatial, temporal and anthropogenic gradients, and will endeavour to make this information available for strategic management and conservation of the coral reefs goods and services. Read Interview…