I originally wrote and published the following piece for LinkedIn; comment and join the conversation here! It was shared by X - The Moonshot Factory on World Conservation Day 2020. If you've followed my other posts recently you might be thinking "this gal is obsessed with Dr Ayana Elizabeth Johnson". And yea, it's true. We had the pleasure of hosting Dr Johnson last month at X, which gave me the perfect excuse to catch up on her writings, and I found them inspiring. 

I’ve swam at night with sharks and barracuda, watching these predators up close with awe. I’ve lived underwater, spending 15 full days immersed in the Aquarius undersea lab. I’ve sailed across the Atlantic, losing battery power for navigation tools on the way and nearly running out of food and fuel in the process. Whenever I share these experiences, the most common question I’m asked is, “Weren’t you scared!?”

Yes, I’m scared — but I’m not scared for the reasons people might assume. During years of training, my teams and I considered and practiced how to deal with any imaginable emergency contingency. Before and during missions, we reviewed the risks we faced and implemented plans to mitigate them. Because of all this training, my personal safety doesn’t consume any raw emotional fear at the time of a mission; if it did, I likely wouldn’t join because it would indicate to me that I wasn't prepared sufficiently. Instead, I’m afraid for what the ocean will be able to provide for current and future generations.

My greatest fear is that we’ll destroy marine ecosystems before we know they exist, or before we understand how dependent we are upon them. As I told National Geographic back in 2014, after emerging from more than two weeks conducting research undersea at the Aquarius lab: "I find it incredibly frightening that we have the technology to completely destroy the ocean in my lifetime." What I hope we now find is that we also have the technology to remediate our relationship with the ocean and its incredible resources.

World Conservation Day is a time for us to think critically about the relationship between the ocean, humanity, and technology — especially this year, as we grapple with what we took for granted and what the future holds. COVID-19 has highlighted our relationship to nature like never before. Many of us have never had to think about staying safe while breathing the same air as others, or touching surfaces without disinfecting them, or our place in the ecosystem. Although the precise source of COVID-19 is not yet known, we know infectious disease rates increase as we encroach into — and damage — natural habitats and ecosystems. Likewise, global protests against racial injustice have reinforced how environmental and racial justice are irrevocably linked while showing just how much lasting change needs to happen. Even if that systemic change can be difficult, it’s possible. But if our relationship to the ocean is based in fear and despair, it can be hard to see where the opportunities for change lie — and what levers are within our control.  
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With that in mind, I’m looking for ways to re-frame my fear of “what do we lose when marine ecosystems are destroyed?” to “what do we gain by living and working in harmony with them?” The ocean has been here far longer than we have, proving its resilience and adaptability to change across millennia. Realistically, while we don’t need to fear the world beneath the waves, we also don’t need to “save the ocean.” Instead, we must work to find ways to live in harmony, sustainably, with the ocean and its complex ecosystems. In the words of Dr Ayana Elizabeth Johnson: “We are overdue for a re-frame, from seeing the ocean as victim or threat, to appreciating it as hero.” 

May I suggest Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson's.

Hailed as one of the most influential marine biologists of our time, she recently co-wrote the Blue New Deal and a suite of other thought and action-provoking work. On a personal note, she is someone I've long admired. She has a rare clarity of thought and engaging way of drawing in disparate perspectives, from fishermen, to surfers, to policy makers, to scientists, to technologists, to caterers, to city dwellers who feel disconnected from nature. We were honored to host her at X, and to release the talk publicly on #WorldOceanDay.

Had this conversation happened a few days before it did, the discussion may have focused solely on ocean climate solutions, Dr. Johnson's area of expertise. Just a few days before recording, however, our country erupted in racial tensions after the injustice of George Floyd's murder that brought to full attention the systematic racism plaguing our country for centuries. While a few days before it may have been awkward to bring up race in this conversation, recent events made it such that it would have been awkward not to bring it up. Dr. Johnson echoed points now in her recently published OpEd:  "I'm a black climate expert. Racism derails our efforts to save the planet. Stopping climate change is hard enough, but racism only makes it harder."  It's a must-read this #WorldOceanDay. 

She also explains the "aha" moments that lead to her mission evolving from “figuring out how to use the ocean without using it up” to “building community around climate solutions.” 

I originally wrote and published the following piece for LinkedIn (here), where it was shared by X - The Moonshot Factory on Earth Day. I originally learned about Dr. Mayor Julia Platt on a scuba trip with friends in Monterey. I think we were all surprised that not only had we not heard of her, but also there was hardly any information about her online! Now I see that part of the problem is her name is sometimes spelled "Platt" and sometimes spelled "Piatt". 

On the 50th anniversary of #EarthDay, I was encouraged by a review I read recently in Nature about the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal around rebuilding marine life. If climate change can be kept at bay, the authors found, “substantial recovery of the abundance, structure, and function of marine life could be achieved by 2050.” In other words: we still have the chance to restore our ocean — within the span of a single generation.

Our survival depends upon our ocean. It provides half the oxygen we breathe, and helps to feed nearly half the planet. It regulates our climate. It makes our “blue planet” unique. Still, so many of us take it for granted and exploit this irreplaceable resource, from dumping millions of pounds of plastic into it every day to devastating our food supply through overfishing. As an engineer on Tidal, X’s project to protect the ocean and help feed humanity sustainably, I’m deeply passionate about the future of the ocean. How can we act now to restore the ocean’s health for generations? Perhaps we can all learn from the examples of others who sought to bring about small changes that became much bigger. 

Pioneering scientist Dr. Julia Platt — an underappreciated embryologist, neurobiologist, and politician — is one of my favorite examples. In the early 1900s, waste from Monterey's canneries was polluting the area's waters and poisoning the local ecosystem. Dr. Platt began by tearing down a fence that violated the town’s charter because it blocked public access to the beach. She then fought to establish a small, protected pocket of the coastline as a refuge for marine life, helping its marine ecosystems recover from overfishing and pollution. While she didn’t succeed against the canning industry, her work set a legal precedent to protect and conserve California’s coast. Monterey is now known for its natural beauty. I often go diving there on weekends: its kelp forests are teeming with otters, and humpback whales frolic nearby. I wonder if Dr. Platt imagined future generations enjoying Monterey’s pristine waters, no longer needing to dodge waste from the canneries.

Everywhere we look, we can see the results of small actions building up to make huge differences. The very first Earth Day, fifty years ago, was a reaction to an oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara, California — at the time, the worst oil spill in American history. More than 20 million Americans, then roughly 10% of the country’s population, participated in teach-ins and gatherings. It led to the founding of the Environmental Protection Agency and a series of policy improvements to protect our waters and planet.

It might seem more difficult today, particularly in these tough times — but if we just look, there’s the results of small actions everywhere, too. From a single school strike, Greta Thunberg’s climate campaign has mobilized a new generation of climate activists. We’ve seen incredible stories of creativity and ingenuity come from people all around the world fighting COVID-19. I only recently read about Selina Juul, the “Food Waste Fighter,” who emigrated from Russia to Denmark at 13, and was shocked by their food waste. She’s since been credited by the Danish government with single-handedly helping the country reduce its food waste by 25% in the last five years.
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When it comes to the world around us, change happens over much longer timeframes and more slowly than we would like — especially in the face of problems that seem so dire. It’s easy to get discouraged, but that’s exactly when we need to be most determined. I’m inspired to see how people have all made a big impact in their own way, starting with a locked fence, or a teach-in, or a school strike. As the paper in Nature put it: “Rebuilding marine life represents a doable Grand Challenge for humanity, an ethical obligation, and a smart economic objective to achieve a sustainable future.” Let’s each do what we can, no matter how little it might seem.

"Dad, why do we have two nostrils?" 

My colleague received this question from his four-year old. Kids ask the best questions — the kinds of questions that led me to my current work. Some animals gain a directional sense of smell from their two nostrils. That's why dogs can uncover hidden clues for police, find truffles in the woods, and become oddly distracted sniffing things otherwise uninteresting to us. We’re only getting a fraction of the sensory inputs that they are. 

As a diver and ocean engineer, I spend a lot of time thinking about how animals perceive a part of the world mostly inaccessible to humans without the aid of technology: the ocean. This vast place that covers most of the Earth’s surface and upon which our life depends is hard for us to comprehend. Its average depth of 3,688 meters is 4x our tallest skyscraper and deeper than any mammal can survive. Most of it is pitch black, and the pressure could crush an army tank. WiFi, GPS, and nearly all the electromagnetic waves we increasingly rely upon do not work, and salt water kills electronics. Yet, many animals manage to thrive in the ocean. 

Gordon et al.'s recent paper in Nature Communications reminded me of one of the many biases we have as humans when we’re sensing the world. Whereas dogs rely upon their strong sense of smell, most of us depend heavily on sight to understand the world around us. We ask, "What does that look like?" and "Do you see what I mean?". If I told you about a new place, you would probably want to see photos of it. If I only gave you headphones to listen to its sound, you would probably be frustrated. Yet, most marine animals never know what their environment looks like. They only know how it feels, sounds, or smells. Fish can school tightly because their lateral line sensors detect pressure and flow, detecting minute changes in their environment long before seeing anything. Famously, sharks can detect a drop of blood a mile away. 

By avoiding our bias towards human perception, the researchers came up with a novel solution. They demonstrated that broadcasting healthy sounds of a coral reef can lure fish back to a degraded reef and help revive its ecosystem. They are careful to note that this will not reverse the plight of our reefs, and it certainly is not a magic cure for the ocean’s ills, but it is an important tool for reviving reefs that are so essential to the ocean’s health while we work to solve the existential problem of excess carbon that threatens planetary life. It made me wonder what other solutions we are missing when we look at problems from a human-centric perspective. What could we learn if we learned to think less like us, and more like the animals that thrive beneath the waves?

​A friend of mine had been talking about the Farallon Islands for months and months. I didn’t really know what they were until I moved to San Francisco. 

About 30 miles west of the Golden Gate bridge, the Farallons jet out of the water, seemingly the only blip on an endless horizon of the Pacific. We spotted them 3 hours into our boat ride from San Francisco. From far away, they looked like a cathedral perched on the horizon. Mariners also refer to the islands as Devil's Teeth islands (the title of Susan Casey's marvelous book), because of its many treacherous underwater shoals. It is also easily hidden by the Bay area's famous fog. 

I visited the islands with friends on a diving reconnaissance mission in October. We could not step foot on the island (only a dozen or so are given permission to do so as part of the permanent station there - eight researchers live on the islands). It's estimated only a few hundred people have ever dove there, so this was a unique and exciting opportunity. 

​October, or “Sharktober”, is when great whites swarm around the islands, hoping to pick seals off the island at high tide. I imagined seeing dorsal fins skimming above the surface, but exaggerated media portrayals drove my imagination. We did not see fins as all, nor do those who visit regularly. The sharks mostly stay below the surface. From Shark Stewards' website: Sharks have swum the oceans for over 400 million years, helping to shape and maintain the health and balance of marine species and ocean ecosystems. Sharks have survived the five great extinction events, including the last which caused the dinosaurs to go extinct. For all this time, sharks were the top predators in the ocean. Until Now.

Friends organizing the trip had gone out with Shark Stewards, an organization whose mission is to restore ocean health by saving sharks from overfishing and the shark fin trade, and protecting critical marine habitat through the establishment of marine protected areas and shark sanctuaries. The work of "Shark Girl Maddison" (Instagram: @sharkgirlmadison) with Project Hiu is also very commendable and worth supporting in this regard. You can dive from boats that are turning from shark-catching boats to boats for recreation and tourism. A lot of folks propose this idea but it is a hard one to actually make happen. Change happens over generations. 
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Another reason I wanted to see the Farallons was because of its geological story. I caught the geology bug from fellow Pisces VI submarine scientist Prof. Aida Farough and fellow National Geographic Explorer Federico Fanti while we were filming a documentary about fossilized coral this summer.  Short recap of the geology from Insta story: 

The actual day of our dives felt like a dream. Arriving at the marina while it was still dark at 5am, we disembarked with the sun rising behind us, shimmering through the Golden Gate. Propoises glided in the water around us. After three hours on the water we saw the Farallons majestically rising from the ocean. ​

Flying San Francisco to Kansas, I looked out the airplane window to see vast fields of square-cut farmland. "What a great place for a submarine...", I thought tongue-in-cheek. Scott Waters clearly thought differently. Friend and the sub's owner, he has been drawing submarines since he was a little kid. I’ve seen the drawings and heard the stories from his parents as proof. He pulled an incredible team together to refurbish the Pisces VI submarine with the vision of making deep sea exploration more accessible. 

In June we unveiled the submarine in Salinas, Kansas, Scott's hometown and where the team has been working for 2+ years. Hundreds of people (including 17 of my family members!) witnessed a tarp dramatically pulled away to reveal the bright-green beauty and reveled in her story. 

In the 1970s and 80s, Pisces VI was used for research expeditions, including a 1987 National Geographic expedition with William Beebe (Link to NYT article), and for contracts with oil and gas companies, surveying and laying pipelines. Her sister submarines, Pisces IV and V, are still active out of Hawaii. Pisces VI, however, was mothballed in a warehouse after the Cold War. Mothballed until Scott Waters purchased it. More on the back story in these Kansas City news articles:

• Why this Kansan bought a deep-sea submarine
• Kansas man rebuilds a deep-sea submarine 
• Summary in my blog post "SUBMARINES IN KANSAS? YES! PISCES VI TO BRING DEEP SEA RESEARCH TO THE MASSES"

​After a refit, she is now ready for sea trials, which the team is conducting in Vancouver Canada alongside Aquatica submarines (who launched ScUber in Australia earlier this year!). Aquatica's chief pilot is fellow National Geographic Explorer Erika Bergman. She piloted Fabien Cousteau and Richard Branson to the bottom of the Blue Hole earlier this year! We're lucky to have one of Pisces VI's original technicians and pilots as Crew Chief for the project, Vance Bradley. The team also includes engineers who have built other submarines (River Dolfi, Steve McQueen), excellent mechanics (Carl Boyer, Ryan Brax Johnson), an Emmy-award winning media specialist (Mick Kaczorowski), and airline pilot (Ben Fosse). More on the crew here!

Transforming Pisces VI into a modern, state-of-the-art deep sea research vessel is a monumental effort from a team of dedicated volunteers. Although the sub is now "unveiled", our work has just begun. The goal is to revolutionize ocean science by making deep sea exploration more accessible and affordable to the broader scientific community. We're sifting through prospective research projects, each with the potential to unlock the mysteries of the ocean and further its conservation. I'll post more on upcoming expeditions over the next several years. 

Stay tuned for more updates! Follow the Pisces VI submarine on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/piscessub/).

A movie called “Wendy” directed by Benh Zeitlin was filmed on the island last year. I’m looking forward to seeing it. Apparently it was not only filmed here, but Montserrat inspired the writer. From IMDB: "Set on a mysterious island where aging and time have come unglued, Zeitlin's mythological story tells the tale of two children from different worlds fighting to maintain their grip on freedom and joy."

Stay tuned for more and please comment if you’ve questions.

 This month I visited the South Carolina Aquarium for the first time. I was on a panel with four fascinating people:  friend and fellow aquanaut Fabien Cousteau, NOAA expedition coordinator Dr Daniel Wagner, shark expert Dr David Ebert, and science communicator/space enthusiast Dr Nadia Drake. We talked with a sold out crowd about the weird and wonderful things in the ocean.

Of course my favorite part was getting to meet everyone, both my fellow panelists and guests at the event. A theme of the evening, and of the Aquarium's work in general, is how much there is to learn from your own backyard. Dr Wagner reminded us that just last year (in 2018!) researchers discovered a vast coral reef just about 160 miles off the coast of where we were seated for the panel (NBC article about discovery). Dr Ebert found and named new shark species in his backyard of Monterey Bay, California. I thought Monterey Bay must be one of the best understood marine areas because it's had an excellent research center there for decades. Apparently we still have a lot to learn even there! I find that motivating and exciting.

The South Carolina Aquarium runs an impressive set of events and activities that inspire conservation of the natural world. Several people I met at the event were pushing for limits on plastic pollution in the city and its surrounding suburbs. A few days before this event, Charleston County approved a ban on plastic bags and foam packaging. There was concern that the state might invalidate the ban, however (local news article). Several Charlestonians I met were also looking for ways to protest against the seismic testing planned off their waters (and all along the east coast), as this is known to harm whales and other marine life. There is grave cause for concern. Unfortunately it seems the testing is slated to continue. I wish I could get ahold of the environmental assessment report for this activity; if anyone has leads please contact me or contact below. Those on land might not notice, but those underwater will. 

Here are bits from what I learned while touring the Aquarium, copied from my Instagram story.

For live updates follow, Instagram @gracecalvertyoung! ​

I'm happy to share this video collaboration with BBC News and Hyundai! View the full 90 second piece at http://www.bbc.com/storyworks/future/innovators-of-tomorrow/tidal-change (only visible in USA at the moment).

In the video, I explain some of my PhD research. Plus you'll see footage we captured on dives in Monterey Bay, California.. Huge thanks to my dive buddy Billy Snook, the BBC team, and The Hydrous for letting me share some of their stunning 3D models! Stills from the video below. 

​Last spring I returned to CERN for its first-ever alumni event, cleverly titled First Collisions. I led a discussion with fellow alumni about how the CERN community can solve problems facing our planet and answer big questions about our ocean. I proposed a “CERN for the planet”, which extended the “CERN for the ocean” idea from my 2015 TIME op-ed. The notion is that we’ve big environmental problems that require highly focused collaborative science to solve, and the ocean’s biggest problems are planet-wide. Not only is CERN a useful model, but its infrastructure and community of scientists can address the urgent mega-problems facing our planet.
 
More than the opportunity to speak, I valued the chance to springboard ideas with fellow alumni and connect with old and new friends. I also spent a morning with the women in technology group, where I shared about how CERN shaped my career (that talk online here).

“For physics enthusiasts like me, CERN more than rivals Disney World,” I wrote before my first trip to the multi-billion dollar facility as a high schooler (that blog at cern2010.wordpress.com). ​

Based in Geneva, CERN is a unique, multinational research organization that studies the fundamental physics of our universe, pushes technological boundaries, trains countless scientists and engineers, and facilitates dialogue among nations through science. While it employs ~2,500 full-time scientist, engineers, and staff, its treasure trove of equipment and laboratory space is available to more than 11,000 scientists from 100 countries [source].

​CERN alumna turned deep-sea explorer (CERN Symmetry Magazine) ​
Spotlight on CERN Alumni - Meet Grace C. Young​ (CERN Symmetry Magazine) 

... click here for full story. 

It’s not everyday I get to use the words “quick” and “eternal” in the same phrase.

Earlier this month I flew part-way around the world from San Francisco to Rome to give a keynote address at the second-ever National Geographic Science Festival (or rather Festival Scienze). My talk, titled “Unseen Oceans,” focused on some of the underwater imaging systems I’ve developed that help us see the ocean in ways we haven’t before:  e.g., the ultra-high speed camera we used on Mission 31 and the fish-tracking camera system I helped develop for NOAA. I also talked about how my ballet training and appreciation of the arts give me a unique perspective on science and engineering. My goal when speaking to the student audience was to show how all sorts of people can get into this career (ballerinas! midwesterners!) and help solve problems facing our ocean and planet.

The week prior I gave a similar talk at National Geographic Headquarters in Washington, DC, though it wasn't the same. My instinct is to mix it up every time because I learn more that way, plus it’s more fun to tell new stories. I hadn’t quite expected how different it would feel giving the talk to an Italian audience. For one, when I test drove the talk with two Italians (thanks fellow explorers Federico Fanti and Marcello Calisti), we realized that I should modify a few cultural references unlikely translate. To name a few: “RVs” are not a thing in Italy. “Camper van,” okay. I describe Aquarius, the undersea science habitat, as "a mix between an RV and a space station." In addition, many Italians aren't likely to instantly know Ohio/Michigan aren't near the ocean. For the student talk, the meaning of "snow day" doesn't translate well, but "school canceled because of weather" makes sense. Movie star Adrian Grenier, in one of my stories, translates. Doc Edgerton's iconic milk drop photo, which I use to describe high speed photography, is also not so recognizable to a young audience.  

With those modified, I thought it’d be fairly smooth sailing. But then there was an aspect with consequences I didn’t anticipate. It was my first time giving a talk where the majority of the audience was listening via live translation in headphones. I’ve been fortunate to listen to talks presented like like this at CERN, the United Nations, and the International Maritime Organization, and I always think it’s cool. As a speaker though, I like to feed off the audience’s energy (yeah like a vampire), and ideally look at faces so I can adapt to confusion, boredom, or whatnot. I enjoy it when the talk feels like a dialogue with the audience. With a mostly foreign audience listening via translation, this aspect was very different. A NatGeo freelancer reminded me that jokes and many phrases simply don’t translate. At every pause I heard loudly the audio translations. For the last 2/3 of the talk I spoke at the same pace but with more dedicated pause between sentences so translation could match. My friend Katya, who has translated between Russian and English, is familiar with this and wisely recommended meeting with the translators beforehand, so we could run through the talk and they’d know what words might be awkward. Pro tip! Now I know!

These elements made the talk somewhat of a challenge as my first experience being translated real-time, but I learned so much. Students had excellent follow-up questions, both afterwards and then through the contact page on my blog. ​

My favorite time was chatting with students afterwards. Three 4th grade students told me about their ocean plastic project. The one boy introduced themselves confidently “We are explorers, and we are doing this project on plastic pollution.” They had already successfully campaigned for their school to replace one-use plastics in the cafeteria with reusable material, and the school made the change! I was impressed and inspired!

The CEO of Sky, Jeremy Darroch, said “One question I’m sure every business is asking with now is: How do I stay relevant to young people?” Sky is sponsoring Ocean Rescue, a multifaceted initiative that includes a marketing campaign geared towards reducing single use plastics. As a company, it has pledged to eliminate single-use plastics from their business and supply chain by 2020. You can follow along with their pledge using #PassOnPlastic.

Thanks On Tap magazine for the spread (online here and print below): 

Also, Washingtonian magazine also listed the event in it's column "things to do in DC this week (April 9-11)" (here):  TUESDAY, APRIL 10 MUSEUMS Ocean engineer Grace Young develops underwater technology to improve ocean exploration, including underwater robots and camera systems for recording fish populations. She will be at the National Geographic Museum discussing the marine life images she’s encountered and the technologies she’s working on creating. 

​​Thanks to all who came out!! It was a packed house!

Drug overdoses now kill more Americans than guns.

Last year I took on a side project to support fellow MIT alumni and learn some things from a different field. Five of us, with one alumni mentor, created an app to help rapidly deliver the antidote to an opioid overdose (Naloxone) to those who need it. You could call it the Uber for Naloxone. It was a different experience for me, in part because I hadn't worked on applications before and also because the five of us never once met in the same room (a few of us had known each other before though). We coordinated over Google Hangouts and email across four time zones, spanning California to England! There were some late nights working on this project from Kansas and at the SailFuture house, but it was worth it. 

Our submission to the government-sponsored hackathon was recognized in this article from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Additionally, team leader Ben Taylor is continuing this work with his company LedgerDomain. 

LedgerDomain announcement October 2017:

Last week I hopped across the pond for the opening of National Geographic’s first immersive entertainment experience. “Ocean Odyssey” in Times Square draws visitors under the sea to experience ocean life thanks to clever videography, staging, virtual and artificial reality. Virtual explorers witness a battle between Humbolt squid, get lost in a kelp forest, and see a whale leap from the depths to feed on a school of fish. They can also play quiz games that show how they can improve the ocean.
 
Pictures tell the story best. More information about how you can visit the exhibit is in the Act Now page of this blog. Your ticket purchase supports the National Geographic Society’s great work! 

CERN's Symmetry publication recently published an interview I did with them a few weeks ago. Excerpts are below, and you can read the full interview at ww.symmetrymagazine.org/article/cern-alumna-turned-deep-sea-explorer

My interview from time at CERN just published in Symmetry magazine. ​Excerpt below.

Full article here. It's also on the Facebook page for the Pisces VI submarine (here). ​

What unique experience did you take away from CERN?  CERN had a huge impact on my development as a scientist and engineer. My experience was truly transformative. My first experience was when I was age 17. A classmate and I won a week-long trip to CERN from the Intel Science Fair for a physics project. It was a dream come true; I'd read so much about CERN. I'm still incredibly thankful to Wolfgang Von Rueden for organizing that trip and becoming a mentor. A year later, CERN’s openlab took a chance on a first-year MIT student and let me into its summer internship program. I got to work with phenomenal people and write software to help physicists (perform Dalitz analysis within the ROOT data analysis framework).
 
Although I veered away from physics into ocean engineering (I like to sail and I love the water), CERN taught me many things that I often think back to. One is the genuine power in community. It's not just about putting capable people in the same place -- it's about having those people, from diverse disciplines work together to solve discrete problems, and work towards a common purpose. Another thing it taught me is that fundamental science pursued for the sake of science (or art) spawns innovation. ​

What value do you see in the CERN alumni network? I see the alumni network as a potentially powerful tool. Of course it's a great way to stay in touch with friends, make new ones, and enhance career connections. Its greatest value, however, may be in harnessing the power of our great community to solve big problems like CERN proper does. Alumni know the value of cooperation and the power of working across disciplines, across cultures, public-private sectors, and that's a powerful thing. 
 
What’s next for you? I'd like to create a CERN-for-the-ocean. Right now we don't understand how the ocean works -- how it holds so much biodiversity, how it maintains weather, sequesters so much carbon. At the same time it faces big problems including overfishing, pollution, acidification and warming. These require technical and policy solutions. I'd like to copy CERN's model for research and innovation and apply it to the equivalent for the ocean of confirming the Higgs boson. 

So far so good! My previous blog post explains why I'm at NASA this summer. In short, I'm still 'Team Ocean' (of course!), but the 3D shape modelling techniques developed for my PhD on coral reefs have direct application for NASA's research on near-Earth asteroids (and vise versa). It's been a fantastic collaboration. Here are more details about what we're doing and why. 

NASA's Frontier Development Lab (FDL) is an experimental tool in NASA’s innovation portfolio that emphasizes artificial intelligence, inter-disciplinary approaches, rapid iteration, and teamwork to produce significant breakthroughs useful to the space program.

​This summer, four of us at NASA FDL are creating 3D models of asteroids. Our core team comprises two planetary scientists (Agata Rozek and Sean Marshall), two machine learning engineers (Adam Cobb and me), plus mentors from both disciplines (Chedy Raissi,  Michael Busch,  and Yarin Gal). We’re creating the 3D models from radar data. It's a difficult computational problem, but knowing an asteroid’s 3D shape helps us predict its future trajectory (/whether it will collide with Earth!). 

The formal introduction to our problem reads as follows: 

It took me a bit to understand exactly what our goals and motivations were. The most common questions my friends ask are, “What are you doing?” and “Why?” My short answer: We're generating 3D models of asteroids from radar data so that we can better determine asteroids' physical properties and orbital trajectories. There are over 16,000 known near-Earth objects, and on average 35 new ones each week. It's too much data to keep up with without sophisticated data analysis techniques, so we're  using machine learning to speed up and automate the process of generating 3D models from radar data of asteroids.

I'm also interested in the task of 3D modelling asteroids because the techniques can be applied to 3D modelling coral reefs, the topic of my thesis, as further discussed in my first post about NASA.

This post is modified from the original published on the NASA FDL page (here). All work was developed while at NASA Frontier Development Lab, working with Agata Rozek, Sean Marshall, Adam Cobb, Justin Havlovitz, Chedy Raissi,  Michael Busch,  and Yarin Gal.  

My colleague Adam just posted his perspective on the project. Read his blog post here. 

The video of our final presentation at Intel Headquarters is live! It's on YouTube at this link.

Last week I had the honor of attending National Geographic’s first-ever Explorers Festival. It was many things:  It was a gathering of explorers from all disciplines and corners of the globe; it was my introduction to the NatGeo “family;” it was an excuse for NatGeo to roll out the 'yellow carpet' for James Cameron, Sylvia Earle, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Bob Ballard, and other explorer-celebrities.
 
As a 2017 Emerging Explorer, I gave a 10-minute talk about my work and dreams and then contributed to a panel discussion on “Transformative Technology;” both are online here.

The week was a gear-shifting process for me. For the past several months I’ve been up to my ears in my PhD thesis. This week forced me to take a few steps back and think big-picture, about major goals and priorities in terms of ocean technology development. It also forced me to reflect on my personal story --- the twists of fate that pushed me to where I am now.