In the field

Deep-sea coral snapped during a
SCUBA dive. (c) Rhian Waller

All of my friends seem to have such exciting lives! Check out Dr. Rhian Waller diving in Fjords in Chile in search of deep-sea corals living near the surface. Dr. Anna Michel is stomping around Alaska with a super fancy laser to measure changes in atmospheric composition.  (No, the laser is not attached to a shark. Too bad, I know.)

Dr. Michel conquering the Alaska wilderness.

Someone at NIH once asked me why I gave up such a cool job diving to the bottom of the ocean and finding new, strange species for... well NIH? I had very specific reasons - I wanted to learn molecular techniques at a cutting edge facility to bring back to marine sciences; I wanted to decrease travel for a while, so I could be with my kids while they were young. And I've accomplished what I set out to do. I have two wonderfully annoying kids and learned far more about developmental biology and molecular biology than I thought I would. Its about time to start putting a toe back in the water. 

I'll do some traveling with USAID. I don't know where but likely to some island nations and Southeast Asia. Not too shabby. The bonus will be that I'll also be helping the people there. I'm hoping to get some proposals submitted and funded during the next year, so I can get back into the big blue head first in 2014. There's something inexplicably beautiful about the sea spray smacking you in the face while you drop thousands of dollars of equipment into the water... hoping that you'll bring up something new and exciting.