Leg 3 Researchers
Click on any
name below to read an interview.
(Back to Main Researcher
Page)

Jeffrey Drazen (top
of page)
MBARI Postdoctoral Fellow

Rebeca
Gasca (top of page)
ECOSUR-Chetumal
Maestra en Ciencias
http://www.ecosur.mx/
What is your role on this cruise?
I will participate as a Mexican scientist observer. I want to collaborate
with other researchers in investigating the biology of fronts by analyzing
the basic aspects of deep-water zooplankton.
What are your primary goals?
To determine new distributions of deep-water zooplankton and to obtain
additional data on their diversity in order to improve the knowledge about
these taxa. Samples will be used to increase the reference collections of
the Mexican plankton fauna held in ECOSUR.
What do you expect to find?
Maybe some undescribed taxa, new faunistic records, and most probably many
previously recorded species. Deep zooplankton material is a gap we have in
our institutional collections because of the difficulties to get good
samples of the Mexican meso- and bathypelagic fauna.
What is your favorite/least favorite part of a
research cruise?
My favorite is when the samples are brought up to the ship, a unique
opportunity to see these creatures alive.
Least favorite is to be away from my family.
Why did you decide to become a
scientist/engineer/etc.? How did you
become one?
Because I’m always both surprised and intrigued by the diversity and
interesting biology of marine animals.

Steve
Haddock (top
of page)
MBARI Scientist
/staff/haddock/
What
is your role on this cruise?
I will be studying bioluminescence of the organisms we collect. I am also
going to be collecting jellies on blue-water scuba dives, and examining
the species of siphonophores, ctenophores, and radiolarians. In addition,
during the return transect, I hope to
survey the gelatinous species along the latitudinal gradient
from Mexico to Monterey.
What
are your primary goals?
I hope to get a feeling for the differences (and similarities) in the
deep-sea species of the Gulf of California. I am hoping to see some new
species, and also I want to see a whale shark and manta ray during out
dives!
What
do you expect to find?
I know some of the surface species which are found there, but I don't know
what to expect for the deep-sea jellies.
What
is your favorite/least favorite part of a research cruise?
Favorite: seeing new weird animals
Least Fave: not getting much exercise
Why
did you decide to become a scientist?
It was the only thing that made me feel like I was coming close to
satisfying my curiosity!
How
did you become one?
10%
hard work, 20% persistence, 70% good fortune!
William Hamner (top
of page)
University of California, Los Angeles
http://www.ucla.edu/

George Matsumoto (top
of page)
MBARI Education and Research Specialist
/staff/mage/
What
is your role on this cruise?
I'll be helping out with the blue-water diving and with the midwater
research. I'll also be sending back the daily web updates during the first
leg of the Robison cruise.
What
are your primary goals?
To learn more about the GOC ecosystem.
What
do you expect to find?
Good question - I don't know! Past trips to this region have indicated
that both Atlantic and Pacific gelatinous zooplankton live here, so I'll
be curious to find out what we see this time.
What
is your favorite/least favorite part of a research cruise?
My favorite part of a research cruise is the excitement of being there,
watching things unfold before our eyes and realizing that we are the first
ones to observe the species or event. My least favorite is being away from
my family!
Why
did you decide to become a scientist/engineer/etc? How did you
become one?
I decided to be a scientist after taking a weekend course that
put a mask and snorkel on my face and literally and figuratively opened my
eyes to the incredible ocean
environment. I majored in marine biology at UC Berkeley and then went and
taught for a summer at the Catalina Island Marine Institute. I found that
I enjoy both research and education and went back to UC Los Angeles for a
PhD degree. I think that I have landed in an ideal situation here at
MBARI.
Karen
Osborn (top of page)
MBARI Graduate Research Assistant
What
is your role on this cruise?
I am a graduate student working on my Ph.D. dissertation research and
helping with others research in my lab.
What
are your primary goals?
I would like to collect munnopsid isopods from this new location and have
the chance to observe species never before observed in their natural
habitat to better understand how this group of animals functions in the
midwater community.
What
do you expect to find?
I expect to find an undescribed species or two of midwater and epibenthic
munnopsids. The munnopsids
living in the Gulf of California are likely to be different than those we
have in Monterey Bay.
What
is your favorite/least favorite part of a research cruise?
My favorite part of any research cruise is seeing new-to-science and
new-to-me animals during the ROV dives, you can't help but remain riveted
to the screens throughout the whole dive.
Why
did you decide to become a scientist/engineer/etc.?
I like continually learning new things and the variety or ever-changing
nature of a career in science.
How
did you become one?
Lots of motivation, study, hard work, and especially help from those
around me. There are some really great people doing science and that
adds to the fun.
Kim
Reisenbichler (top of
page)
MBARI Senior Research Technician
/staff/reki/
What
is your role on this cruise?
I am the Sr. Research
Technician with the Midwater Ecology group. My primary
responsibilities on this cruise are to: 1) Work with others in the
group to collect ROV video transecting data and to work with animals
that we collect during the ROV
dives; 2) Participate in blue water diving
operations (open ocean, tethered scuba diving) where we do relative
assessments of the abundance of the organisms we see and; 3) monitor
the ROV midwater sampling equipment for proper function and to repair
and/or modify these devices, as needed, to enable us to make the collections
that a necessary to perform our research. In addition, I monitor,
troubleshoot and at times repair the onboard chilled seawater system
and environmental chamber that we use to maintain some of the animals
we collect during the dives.
What
are your primary goals?
My primary goals are
to successfully contribute to making the observations
and collecting the samples that are required to meet our mission
goals.
What
is your favorite/least favorite part of a research cruise?
My favorite part of
the cruise is to have the opportunity to go out on the
ocean and have the opportunity to observe what very few, if any, other
people have had a chance to see first hand; how the animals are distributed
within the upper water column between Monterey and Honolulu.
In addition, the people that I have the pleasure to work with during
this cruise are exceptional and I certainly can't complain about the
food.
My
least favorite part of this cruise is leaving my family. I miss my wife,
Liz, and my son and daughter, Scott and Sarah. I also
feel badly about leaving Liz with the responsibility of caring for our
children while dealing with the responsibilities of her own job.
Why
did you decide to become a scientist/engineer/etc? How did you become
one?
My decision to become
a scientist was based upon my love of the outdoors, which was inspired by
my Father's efforts to get my brother and I out fishing and hunting as
often as possible. As I got into High School, I had the opportunity to
work on our dairy farm where I learned to love building and repairing
things, as well as taking care of animals. And after returning to an urban
existence, I soon became aware that I needed to get an education that
would allow me to do the types of work that I liked in an environment that
I enjoyed being in.
So,
I started to upgrade my education at a Junior College where I prepared to
go on to a University, as well as get a degree in Oceanographic
Technology. I then transferred to the University of California at Santa
Barbara where I was able to work in the field as an undergraduate, met the
man who has now been my boss and mentor for over 20 years, and received my
B.S. and M.S. degrees in Marine Biology. Prior to receiving my M.S. degree
I was fortunate enough to be offered a job at MBARI and I have been there
ever since.
For
those who are seriously considering getting into this field, I would
suggest the following:
- Study hard and develop a good work ethic early (K-12).
- Try to really understand what you are learning (Don't just memorize).
- Get some real-world, non-science work experience before, or during
college. It helps you appreciate the relative freedom we have working in
this field.
- Get experience in your chosen academic field during college by getting
involved in work-study programs, internships, etc...... Along with good
grades, this will give you an edge in the job market. The other side of
this coin is that you may find by this experience that this is not the
field for you and you can still adjust your career path while still in
college.

Bruce
Robison (top of page)
MBARI Senior Scientist
/staff/robr/
What is your role on this cruise?
I am Chief Scientist on Leg 3
and Expedition Leader for the entire operation.
What are your primary goals?
The midwater research team will be conducting a series of ROV dives in
three of the deep basins that shape the Gulf of California.
We will count and observe the
animals that live in the deep-water
column in order to learn about their physiology, ecology, and distribution.
We will focus our investigations on how these animals respond to the
strong oxygen minimum layer that occurs in the Gulf. We will also study
their bioluminescence, and the role of oceanic fronts in determining their
distribution patterns.
What do you expect to find?
No one has ever used an ROV to study the midwater fauna of
the Gulf of California, so we really have no precedents to tell us
what we might
find there. Of
course that's what makes this so interesting—exploring where no one has
gone before. Based on
what we have learned in Monterey Bay, we expect that a few specialized
animals may be adapted to life in the core of the low-oxygen zone.
The physiological and behavioral adjustments that allow them to live
there should be very interesting. Other species may have shifted their
distribution patterns so that they occur chiefly above or below the depths
where oxygen is at its lowest.
One of the best
things about exploration is that you never know for sure what you
will find, but if you take a new tool to a new place, you are bound
to discover something new.
What is your favorite/least favorite part of a
research cruise?
I love going to sea and being at sea. Oceanography is a science that
is best conducted by being on the ocean, being in it, and being surrounded
by it. There is no substitute for direct, real-time,
at-sea experience. As Jimmy Buffett sings: "don't try to
describe the ocean if you've never seen it."
Why did you decide to become a
scientist/engineer/etc? How did you become one?
I grew up as a southern California beach kid. When I found out that
you could get paid to do what I did for fun, it seemed like an obvious
career choice.
It took a while to see the obvious. I had a series of undergraduate
majors— Engineering, English, History, and Philosophy—before settling
into science. But each of those false starts has helped to make me a
better scientist. Eventually, I had the great good fortune to find my way
to Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station, where it all came together.

Brad Seibel (top
of page)
MBARI Postdoctoral Fellow

Robert
Sherlock (top of page)
MBARI Research Technician
/staff/robs/
What is your role on this cruise?
On this cruise I'm functioning as a technician for the midwater lab and
also as a blue water (research) scuba diver.
What are your primary goals?
To compare and contrast the organisms we see in the Gulf of California
to those we observe in the Monterey Bay, to improve my Español, and
to—in between cruises of course—find the best mole in La Paz.
What do you expect to find?
When we dive below 1000 m we never know exactly what we'll find.
The Gulf of California has a dramatic oxygen minimum layer; similar to
what we have here in the Monterey Bay, where oxygen levels are very low.
However, the layer is much more broad in the Gulf. Potentially it could
serve as an even more difficult boundary for organisms, and I'm
curious to see what animals manage to cross it. Because of that
boundary and because the Gulf of California is so long and narrow, I
expect critters to differ from those we see off Monterey. I also
expect many of them to be good at surviving in low oxygen levels and/or
have a pronounced diel migration.
What is your favorite/least favorite part of a
research cruise?
My least favorite is the inevitable: running out of Hagen Daaz bars. Actually,
it's watching an organism that we captured in a sampler 12 hours
prior leak onto the deck when the ROV is retrieved.... or maybe it's
running out of tape in the middle of a transect. The best part of a cruise
is the feeling that comes from being more a part of the ocean than apart from it
(which, unfortunately, also is inevitable after too many hours
staring at the computer on my desk).
Why did you decide to become a
scientist/engineer/etc? How did you become one?
I wanted to do something that was stimulating, challenging, and fun.
Marine biology holds promise of all that as well as the thrill of
discovery. Although research cruises are usually hard work and long hours,
at no other time are these things more evident .
Find scientists that do interesting things, get to know
and help them. It's important to find more than one. Even if you
begin by doing 'grunt' work, you'll see what science is about and be
able to decide whether you want to pursue it as a career, a sideline (like
a science writer), or not at all. Scientist's advice and
recommendations (to schools or future employers) will also help further
you along. Keep this in mind as you wade through anoxic mud in an estuary,
aspirate fruit flies from rotting cactus, or crunch through snow on your
way to a collecting dive—all in the name of experience, of course!
Edith Widder (top
of page)
Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution
http://www.hboi.edu
Dr. Edith Widder is a Senior Scientist in Harbor Branch's Division
of Marine Science where she heads up the Bioluminescence Program. She
graduated magna cum laude from
Tufts University with a B.S. Degree in Biology. She received her M.S. in
Biochemistry and her Ph.D. in Neurobiology from the University of
California in Santa Barbara.
Two years after completing her Ph.D., Dr. Widder became certified
as a Scientific Research Pilot for Atmospheric Diving Systems. She holds
certifications that qualify her to dive the deep diving suit WASP as well
as the single-person, untethered submersibles Deep Rover and Deep
Worker. She has made well over 100 dives in the Johnson-Sea-Link
submersibles.
Dr. Widder's research has involved the development of a number of
instrument systems for measuring bioluminescence, including the HIDEX-BP
on which she co-holds the patent and which is now the standard in the U.S.
Navy for measuring bioluminescence in the world's oceans. Her research has
been featured in 6 television productions (2 BBC, 1 PBS, 2 Discovery
Channel, and 1 National Geographic). The most recent one was the two-part
Discovery Channel series "Forbidden Depths," which described
research and diving with the Johnson-Sea-Link submersible in Cuban
waters.
Besides being an author on 60 scientific publications, Dr. Widder has
produced a children's book on bioluminescence, The Bioluminescence Coloring Book, and an educational video, The
Secret Lights in the Sea, which won the Silver Reel Award in Media
Excellence for 2001.
See
Dr. Widder's logbook updates posted on Harbor Branch's web at http://www.at-sea.org/missions/cortez/preview.html
|