There are so many graduate students that are doing amazing things and people in
science that are doing amazing things with science, not only on their
graduate work or their scientific work, but also their side
hustles or what they like to, if they really get involved in science and
they have a little bit of a knack or a skill to develop something, they
can develop something. And today we're actually gonna be talking to Paige
Hull, who just finished her PhD in
coastal eutrophication from UCLA in
the US, She's also known for a little page
that she has on TikTok and it's at
98,900 followers right now and it continues to grow. There are some
videos that she talks about different stories around
like surfing waves and sort of the impacts of the Olympics on
surfing waves. She also talks about the Resolute Desk
in the White House and how that has an oceanographic tie to
it. She does these stories in just amazing ways. And I
wanted to have her on the podcast so badly. And she actually reached out to be
on the podcast, which I was so happy. So we have her on today. We're
going to talk to Paige about science communication and about her PhD work
and just science in general. So let's start
the show. Hey,
everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the
ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, what you can do to live for a
better ocean by taking action. And on today's episode,
we're going to be talking about speaking up for the ocean, because we have
Paige Hull, who's on the podcast today, talking about
not only her PhD work that she did on coastal eutrophication and
how she makes that really exciting to hear about, but also about
her science TikTok. her science communication tiktok efforts which
are absolutely amazing if you want to go to her
tiktok it's at lil l-i-l ocean
page p-a-i-g-e you
can check it out she you're not going to be alone in watching her videos
but she has this incredible knack to tell stories. And
it's out of this world. I was a huge fan of her
before she reached out to me to be able to be on this. She goes,
hey, do you want me to come on the podcast? I can talk about this and this. And I was like, yes, absolutely.
Yes, I'm a huge fan of yours. So I'm looking, I'm really looking forward to it, which was,
it was an amazing podcast. We talked for over an hour about
her PhD, about her science communication efforts. And
it was absolutely riveting for me anyway. So
I hope it is for you. She's a super interesting
individual. She tells stories on this podcast, like
she tells stories on TikTok, and it was an
absolute pleasure to have her on. And a lot of the times, when you hear
people do a science communication effort, or
dedicate their time to doing science communication, you don't really hear about the
nuts and bolts of how they put videos together, or
how they put a tweet together, or how they put a strategy together. You
know, Paige goes in depth into that, and I think it's really
interesting. On the other side of that, on the science side of
it, where she actually does science, she talks a lot about, you
know, how she grew up wanting to do a PhD. It ran
in her family. I've never heard of that, but it ran in the family with multiple
people in their family. had PhDs and so she always thought she was going
to do a PhD and then she got interested at the age of four or five in
oceanography which is insane if you think about it and
then now here she is just finishing a PhD in coastal eutrophication
oceanography and just being super interested in that
that that stuff that we don't really hear about all the time.
Oceanography is not as common as we think. When we hear about someone
studying the ocean, we automatically go to marine biology. She's like, nope, oceanography
is for me, and that's what I want to do. And she talks about her journey to
there, how she chose the project that she did, and why it
was so important. And then, of course, the science communication aspect. So there's so
much to get out of this episode. You're probably going to want to listen to it more than
once, and I don't blame you. But here's the
interview with Dr. Paige Hull. Enjoy, and I will talk to you after.
Hey Paige, welcome to the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Are
you ready to talk about all things oceans and ocean storytelling?
I feel that I feel that because I have to admit like I
do a little research before I have people come on And I did
a lot of research on your tiktok page and you probably
tell the best stories That I ever like I'm a huge fan. So
I'm very excited when you when you reach out you're like, hey Andrew Do you want me to come on your
podcast? I can talk about my phd I could talk about so i'm like absolutely like
this is awesome and we found out we're both fans of each other so
that's it's gonna be a lot of fun exactly so there's gonna
be a lot of conversation but I you know I want my audience to get
to know you today and to get to know what you did for your PhD how you
got to the point where are you doing a PhD and what you
want to do it on and then even into the science communication how
that you kind of fell into that and just realize you're like hey people
like the way I tell stories okay I like So we'll see
how that goes. But before we get into all that, Paige, why don't you just let people know who
Yes. Well, thank you for the kind intro, Andrew. So
my name is Paige, and I am an oceanographer.
I have a PhD in atmospheric and oceanic science.
And I have more recently become known as a little
ocean page or Ph.D. pagey on tick tock. And
I've had a relatively successful ocean tick tock
for the last year or so. And I'm really just enjoying all
the science communication and spreading the wonder that I've always
had for the ocean. But now getting random
strangers on the Internet to learn along with me, it's been such a
That's awesome because I am, as you know, I'm a huge proponent of
getting people involved in the ocean, people who aren't like studying the
ocean full time or marine biologists or coastal scientists
or oceanographers and conservationists who may not
know much about the ocean and, you know, want to to
be entertained at the same time as learning and I think you
do a perfect job in balancing those two and it's
not an easy thing to do and we definitely appreciate it.
What got you into the ocean in the first place? You say you've always had a curiosity. When
do you remember that first time you were like, ooh, I like this
So I was I was always one of those I
have a frankly annoying story Which is that I just
knew from the jump. I was like four or five years old
and I saw a We had a VHS tape of
Robert Ballard. Dr. Ballard finding the battleship Titanic
and No, no, no, the battleship Bismarck, the same scientist
who found the Titanic originally, but this was a
VHS tape about him finding the battleship Bismarck. And
he, prolific oceanographer, he used all these
different tools and now a very outdated technology
to find the battleship. But I watched
this VHS tape until it couldn't play anymore. I
was just so... Even at that age, like four and five years old? At that age. Wow.
I was sold. I was like, you can explore the ocean as
a job? That's a thing that you can do?
I'm sold. And it helped
that my grandmother lived in San Diego,
and we would go down to visit her, and we'd spend
our Saturdays just at the beach, sand
on every single part of my body, in the water. I
was always like a water baby. And I just remember wondering
The waves keep coming. And every time I
come here, there's waves. Yeah. what is
this place? So that, like, imagination
was just like, from the jump. And from there on out,
it was like, kind of a done deal. So yeah,
from there, it really progressed. I, it helped
that I was good at math and science and physics and
chemistry. I was always, my family's like
pretty scientific in background. I'm actually like, one
Yes. Uh, which, uh, is,
is an advantage in the sense that I was like, well, if my, if my dad can
get one, if my grandpa can get one. If my great grandmother
had one, you know, like, why not me? It seemed like a very, like,
not like it was an expectation, but almost in a sense seemed very accessible. Because
I was like, well, they all did it. So yeah, why can't, why
not me? Um, but yeah, I knew I was
interested in oceanography, not marine biology. I find marine biology fascinating,
but. I like can't see blood. So the thought
of cutting any animal open was like a no-go for me. Um, but
yeah, I, I understood that like, oh, it's understanding
the physics of the ocean, understanding the chemistry of
the water. And yeah, it was just like,
okay, that's what I gotta do. I gotta be good at math. I gotta be good at chemistry.
I gotta be good at physics. And then it also helped,
too, that my dad works, makes software for
a mapping company. So maps are
very prolific in our household. And I
loved maps, maps of the ocean floor, maps of countries
and interesting... Even like the older maps, right, where the
geography changes and the sort of the morphology changes as
you go through it. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It
was, it was pretty, yeah, it was kind of straightforward for
me from the jump. I was like, okay, I love the ocean. I'm good at school. I'm
just going to keep riding this until the wheels fall off.
I love it. Now, were you one of those students, say,
in high school, like, you know, it's a math-intensive subject
matter, even just to get into science, to get into university, right? You
gotta take your physics, you gotta take your chemistry, you gotta take your
calculus and functions and whatever that
might be. Were you a student that naturally, like,
you were able to learn it pretty quickly, or did you have to, like, work your
There's no wrong answer by the way on this. Yes and no. I'd
be lying if I say I wasn't just good at math. I've always been good at math. But
I think when I got into high school and in college, university
really was a kick in the butt my first year because in high school I
knew the exact amount of time I could put in and I would get
a result and it would work and then I just assumed that would
transfer to a university and I did my undergraduate at
UC Santa Barbara and which is like
a pretty rigorous school and I Going through
that it was like calc to my
my first quarter. I Failed I got
a D. I've never gotten anything lower than a B in my entire
life. I was like And I
got I got I was so upset I think I got a
C in chemistry and I was like, oh it's a good student like First
Oh my gosh, but I remember being so upset and
my mom was like My mom came into my room and was
like, so you just think because you
worked hard, you're entitled to an A. Is that what you think? Like,
welcome to the real world, Paige. But
I mean, she was right. She was right. And she's like, it's
not about you failing this class. It's like, what are you going to do now? You
got to pick yourself up, like brush your knees off, like,
like deal with your bruised ego later. What are you going to
do now? And I think normalizing, like failing
so many people fail so many times before they get it
right. I think But like perception that you need
to be perfect at everything will cripple you. You don't
achieve anything because you'll just be scared. But yeah,
I mean, I failed. I failed to math classes in
college and undergrad. And I retook them
and I got A's the second time. Yeah, I did
OK in physics. I got
through it. I took like the engineering level of physics. So
like the hella hard. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But also too, I've always known that I had a good
storytelling ability and I've always known that what I
lack, even if I'm not an A plus student, my
enthusiasm counteracts that and we can't all be
the same. There can be someone that's
better than me at research but can't tell the story, so how valuable is
the research that they did if no one's going to know about
Or that even tracks with when you go
for a grant. It's a storytelling exercise, right?
When you apply for a grant. So you may be able to do the research and kick
butt in the research, but if you can't get the grant to pay for the research, you're
not going to be able to do the research in the first place, right? So that comes
So during that part, that's a tough time. And a lot of students go through that. That's
just not you. I went through that. A lot of people, we get humbled
in university. It doesn't matter the year. There's always one course
or two courses that really help. For me, it was invertebrate zoology one
and two. Our lab exam
was like you had to identify the animal in a microscope, and then
you answered a question on it. If you got the animal wrong, you you
you were marked like six out of ten you know to get perfect right
so and it was never an animal that you've seen before it
was always an animal that you hadn't seen before but you had to go through the process and
identify the kingdom and the phylum and all that kind of stuff
super super difficult but like For me, I learned to
be resilient. How did that teach you to sort
of, because look, doing a PhD is harder than
undergrad, right? So how did that teach you to fight back
and just be like, no, I'm gonna scrape and crawl and do what I can to
take everything that I know and to believe in myself to be able to do
Yeah, that's the key word there is belief. It's
such a fake it till you make it type of deal because you realize that
You realize when you're in university that, you
know, it goes two ways. Sometimes it's like, everyone's smarter than me. Everyone
has all this knowledge. But then you also do realize, well,
everyone had to learn it. once you know everyone was
a beginner at some point and when
you get to a certain level of academics a lot of
it I do think is grit like obviously you need a
certain amount of like you know ability to retain knowledge
but at a certain point I definitely realized as
an undergrad I was like I think this is just about just
pushing just pushing onwards ask
and also to like asking for
help asking and putting yourself in the situations that
you didn't think you deserved. Why not try? Yep. Like as
an undergrad, I took graduate level classes my last
year, because I was like, you know what, why not? Like, yeah, let me just ask
these professors and see if I have the chops. To get through a
couple graduate level classes, and if I can do that, then why can't
this? Like, why can't this? But
I started and part of it, yeah, is you got to be a little bit
cocky to be like, yeah. Why not me? I
got this. Why not? Yeah, I got this. Whatever. And
what's the worst that's going to happen, right? My
worst case scenario is really not that bad in the grand scheme of things. So
I might as well shoot my shot. But
I feel like a lot of once
I realized I just needed to ask and put myself out there
and continue to bite off seemingly more than
I could chew, I was rewarded. It
was like, Oh, you want to do an undergraduate thesis
with some esteemed professor. Great. He's excited
to work with an undergrad or like you want to intern for
this company in Denmark. Cool.
They sit there actually interested in you because you asked
like so much of opportunities like
in this podcast, like, You just got to ask, you
know, you got to, you don't, you don't wait for life to happen to you. You got to like go
after it. And so in terms of a PhD as well, where that
is a five year exercise in getting kicked in the teeth, like
it is so humbling, but at the same
time, like, you just got to ask, you just got to keep like, you're
there. You found your way there. That's not
for nothing. Like, Keep trying, keep asking. And
a lot of a PhD too, which I
didn't realize until maybe halfway through, is
it's proving that you're a scientist. It's like making yourself into
a scientist and proving you're a scientist. It's not about being right. Because
so much of science is getting things wrong. And if
you're so afraid to get things wrong that you don't do
anything a little bit risky or do any interesting research or
come up with any interesting ideas, then you're
kind of failing your Ph.D. because you're not there to get
it right. It's not a class where there's A, B, C, D. It's
an exercise in making yourself into a scientist. And
so that is a totally different
experience. But it gets back to like the grit, like just ask,
just keep just push. Even if you don't think you deserve to be there, like
Well, here's case in point. When you reached out to ask to
be on the podcast, You were on my mind to
ask to be on the, like, I was going to ask you to be, I just never
did. I'll be like, she's at 98,000 followers on TikTok. There's
no way she's going to, she must get messages upon messages upon
messages. If I DM her, is she going to even see the message? Right.
And then we find out we're fans of each other and you're just like, oh
my God, like, yeah, we're just people. And
yes, of course I want you on the podcast. And, you know, and it's just a
matter of asking and putting yourself out there to just be like, yeah, Might as
well, you know. But that's
such a hard thing to get over, I think, especially as a young undergrad
student. I think it's one of those things where, even
in the science, like we all have friends we've probably roomed with or
been in a house with during the undergrad where they're in business
and they don't start class until one o'clock in the afternoon. And
meanwhile, I started when I was at 830 every semester
of my undergrad career. And I went, because there's labs that happen in
the afternoon that are all afternoon. And as much fun
as they are, it's a hard day. It's a hard day's work. And it's a hard
program to get through, no matter what you're going through, science related.
It's a hard program to get through. And so during
that time, you still have you
know, the want to do, you know, oceanography and all
that type of work. What was going through your mind during
your undergrad? Like, how did your mind change or did your
mind change in terms of what you wanted to do afterwards,
whether it be work or even PhD or what you wanted to
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a great question. So
I was so gung ho oceanography that
I thought my, this was my, I think this
was my freshman year, freshman or sophomore year. I was like, you know what? If
I want to do oceanography, I should talk to grad students who are
doing it right now and see, A, what they have
to tell me, B, if it seems like they're having a good time. So
I reached out, I sent Lord
knows how many emails, probably like 30 or
40 emails. So I went on to, and UC Santa Barbara is like
a mecca for oceanography. So
I looked on all of the different departments' websites,
like the geography department, the earth science department, and I was
majoring in earth science and geography, so I already knew some of
those grad students. They had a special ocean
science graduate school. I found everyone who was
doing research that I was remotely interested in. I
sent them an email. I was like, hey, I'm an undergrad. Your research
sounds cool. Can we sit down for coffee? Can I come by your
office? And eventually what that ended up with was
I got opportunity to do research with
one graduate student who is towards the marine biology and
like fishery side. And I helped him out with his research
for like almost a full year. And that was cool because I
got to see he was in year two, three of his PhD. And
I got to see what, what that kind of phase was like. Um,
And then another God student responded to me, Alexa,
who kind of remained my mentor to this
day. And she was an absolute
dynamo. I couldn't believe she was even talking to me. But she
was like, your email was endearing. And I
wanted to help you out. Yeah, you
seemed really enthusiastic. And so through those
relationships and just staying
really in tune with the faculty. I like
loved, we had some great professors and I just went to office hours
every single opportunity I could. I, even
if I didn't have questions, I just wanted to talk to them and be like, yeah, how'd you get
into oceanography? How this, and actually my, I
think this was my junior year. I think this was my junior year. Robert
Ballard, Bob Ballard came to talk to the earth
science faculty at UCSB. He's actually UCSB alum.
And I got an email about it. This was like supposed to be a faculty meeting.
I don't know how I got the email, but I was like, Oh, Oh,
my gosh, drop everything. I went home to go
get my one of his books, Eternal Darkness, which
is about and I brought it and it's a faculty meeting
around a round table. I see. Thankfully, I
knew the professors are like, Hey, what are you doing here? And I
was like, after the
meeting, I like went up to Dr. Bauer
I'm being cool right now, but I'm such a huge fan. This is
And can we take a picture? So through my
undergrad, I was really like, emboldened. I
was like, yeah, I can do this. Yeah, I can
like it is worth my time and it
helped that I had I had friends out obviously
outside and Like UC Santa Barbara is
like known to be a party school. So, you know, you get a little
bit of everything There's like great academics, but it's also Sunny
and 70 every single day and you're on the beach. So, you know
at times it was like, oh man, I wish I didn't have Two
tough majors to do, but at the same time, it was
just like, so cool. And the instructors
were good. And I could, I could see I was making progress towards
my goal. Like I could see, okay, like
people are talking to me. I was like presented a
conference, like all those little things that made me
affirmed in me that all of my efforts were not for nothing. It
would be different, I think, if I was just taking classes and I was like,
what am I doing all this work for? But I respond well
to external affirmation. So
But did you think also, too, like there's the affirmation part, but it's also
it's that It's almost that motivation when
you start to volunteer with somebody to do their, help them do their graduate work.
It's like, oh, this is really cool stuff. Like this is
amazing stuff. Like even the student you said, it was a bit more marine biology. It
probably confirmed you're like, yeah, I'm probably not into the whole marine biology thing,
but there's all this other stuff. Did you get to do some field work with this
Like it just motivates you to want to do it that much more, right?
Yes, yes, absolutely. We were collecting crabs.
We, like, went into the field. We went on, like, boats to
go get crabs. I was like, this is so cool!
And then we had crab tanks, and we would dissect
the crabs, which was so disgusting. But still,
I was like, whoa, this is so neat! Yeah, at least there's
no blood. At least there's no blood. Yeah, true, true, true, true. I saw
more crab carapaces than I would like to have. But
still, it was like, I like this whole process. Yeah,
it's interesting. Yeah, doing this. And
yeah, like, no, I felt like no time was wasted. So
I'm thankful I went through all of it. But it's, it's not for the faint of
heart. It is like, very time consuming if you really pursue it.
Well, and I think that's What a lot of people don't realize when they
go into undergraduate and even graduate work is
it's supposed to take up a lot of time. You're not
just there to go through the motions, get the marks, get the classes, and then graduate.
University can offer so much more. College can offer so much more.
And it's up to you to take advantage of that. I find in
my experience anyway, and this is not everybody's experience, but it sounds like it's
quite like your experience where Professors
are very open to conversation. If you show passion, you show you want to
help out or you want to do something, you want to volunteer, they will have you
in their labs if they have room. If there are people who
want to go out in the field, they're always looking for undergraduates to help graduate students.
And I think that really helps. And I find, like with my experience, the
professor had like a little community in their lab. And it was like you felt
part of that. That almost became a bit of your friend group, like
your professional friend group. And I still have those friendships to
this day. And now we're like, sometimes we're colleagues
when we work and stuff. And so it's a kind of a cool
experience, but you have to kind of get out
of the... It's true. You gotta get out of the party and
social side all the time to really immerse
yourself into the university atmosphere and the ability to
do research or fieldwork or extra
skill sets or whatever that might be to be
It's hard to have that perspective at that age, too, to
know the opportunity that you have. For sure. When you're 18 years
old, you're just like, this is the next thing to do. It's hard to know that,
like, This is your opportunity that you'll
Well, there are a lot of distractions at university. There's a lot to do.
You can get involved in clubs. You can get a job at
a bar, and that becomes your life. It's hard.
There's a lot to, especially in the US,
when university sports are such a big thing. You
And there's the independent aspect. I was in third grade. I rode my
Yeah, and sometimes that could be opportunities for
you, right? Like that could lead to other opportunities, but other times it could be
a distraction to what you want to do if your group
is not necessarily focused on the same thing. And so you really
have to work a little extra to get to that, which you did, which is awesome.
But at what point where you're like, I'm going to do a PhD like
you had your family who were probably like, yeah, you could do it like you're on track
to do that. At what point did you be like, were you like, I want to do a
PhD, but not only doing a PhD, but I want to do it in
Yes. So yeah, the PhD thing was always kind of set for
me because I was really in high school when
i thought about okay i'm in the ocean what specific jobs
can i get and i looked into. Actually
being an oceanography was that entail. There are very few
oceanographer jobs where you don't have a PhD because
you're doing research. Oceanography is
not cheap. They need very well educated people
to do it. Um, so I knew
from the jump, I was like, okay, I'm going to have to, I'm going to have to get a PhD. Um,
But coastal eutrophication came to me kind
of my sophomore junior year of college um,
I was taking a biogeochemistry class
um biology geology and chemistry all put together
Um, and it was a marine biogeochemistry class. It's
taught by david valentine at ucsp shout out.
He's an incredible biogeochemist Yes, he is.
I just remember the nutrient cycles were
so fascinating to me and how nutrients
interact so tightly with primary productivity and
the biological pump. Then
it was like, oh my gosh, we are really altering the
nutrient cycle of the ocean in a way that we never have
before. Never. Like, because if you even think about,
you know, the Earth has been around for billions of years, there
have been times where the ocean has been incredibly warm, and the
physics has changed and the weather is different. But we've,
the eutrophication, the influx of human
nutrients is unprecedented. We've never seen anything
like this and once I realized how interconnected it
all was and how you could be
a coastal ocean biogeochemist and focus specifically on oxygen
or focus specifically on nitrogen or you know there's
like a million different angles and I also think
too Um, I love research for the sake
of research, but to be frank, I want to do something that's
like directly in touch with humanity and
how we interact with the ocean. Um, because the
ocean is a resource for us. It's also like maintaining
our planet. And I find the interchange really
interesting. Like, okay, if we do need to
dispose of wastewater and we don't live in a perfect world where there's no
wastewater. what's the safest way in which we can dispose
of it in the ocean because we're not in a perfect world. And
so all of those kinds of questions really fascinated me. So
that was about my junior year of college.
And then my senior year I did kind of a eutrophication style,
um, thesis and I
was totally enthralled. I was also enthralled with
harmful algal blooms, right? that had, and
actually I was exposed to those when I was doing research
with the graduate student who was taking crabs, because
some of the crabs had damelic acid, which is prevalent
on the west coast of the United States from harmful algal blooms. And I
was like, what? Like this crab is poisoned? And
he's like, yep, you wouldn't eat this crab. And that
also to me is just like, wow, like it's also interconnected. And
so it was around then that I was like, all right, it's coastal eutrophication. I'm
That's awesome. For your PhD, did
you do it at UCLA? Is that where you did your PhD? Yes. Okay, so
you moved down the coastline a little bit to UCLA.
Yeah, so my advisor was Daniele Bianchi. When
I was looking at graduate schools, I
looked at all the major oceanographic schools And
I was like, OK, who's doing coastal eutrophication? It wasn't
until kind of at the end of my search that
I was talking to a scientist at Scripps, Clarissa Anderson, and
she was really involved in harmful algal bloom research. And I
was like, I think I'm interested in how human nutrients affect
harmful algal blooms. And she was like, I don't have any money,
but I have a colleague who's really smart, who just got a grant. You
should go talk to him. And so, yeah, I was
crazy too, because I worked so hard on my applications for like five other
schools. But last minute, he's like, yeah, I applied to UCLA. And
I was like, Okay, cool. Um, you
know, and so I ended up there and it was a great fit. And I
liked that his work was modeling based. So
using a big coupled physical biogeochemical model
to make estimates instead of in-situ sampling,
which has so many merits, but that is really
expensive, really time-consuming. You're at the whim of
the ocean, too. It's an unforgiving environment. Southern
California, it, you would be shocked, you know? So,
um, I was, and I love the, like, and
this really gets into like my geography background, but I love that the
spatial resolution of a model is everything.
A model is inherently false because it is a model. But when
you're dealing with ocean observations, you are at the whim of where can
you take your ship? Where is, where is a
pier? Where is a buoy? And you have to guess for
everything else. Whereas like the model really appealed to me. So, um,
yeah, once I was in, I was so happy to be there. He ended up
actually ended up that another student he had coming in
was like a better fit for the harmful algal bloom research. And
so I just moved into general eutrophication in
coastal Southern California bite, um, that region of
the ocean around Southern California. And I focused, at
the beginning of my PhD, I specifically focused on wastewater
treatment policies. So yeah, in Southern
California, about a billion gallons of wastewater are
pumped back out into the ocean every single day. It's a lot of
wastewater. That affects things. Yes, exactly,
exactly. And it's treated, it's all treated wastewater. So
it's treated to a secondary degree, meaning that all the organics, all
of like the poop and urine and all nasty stuff, it's turned back
into inorganic nitrate and ammonium.
But still, when you pump that much nitrate and
ammonium into the ocean, it's going to have major
impacts on phytoplankton and primary production. And so
my research focused on some hypothetical scenarios
of different water treatment. And as
we start to recycle more wastewater, how is that going
And especially as the population increases, too. Yes. Right.
Twenty three million people and counting. So very
reliant. And the beaches of Southern California are
visited more than the beaches of the entire rest of the United States combined.
So it's like, how do we keep these beaches healthy? But
also, we do really rely on, where else
are we going to dispose of this wastewater? So I love
that human ocean, those questions, I
love. And now, especially with offshore wind
energy becoming very prevalent all over, I
love the spatial question of, Where
could you do this? Where would this be smartest? Where is
safe for marine species? These questions, I
love to think about all the different angles. So it was
Especially as the complexity increases, like the ocean users increase, like
you mentioned, bringing in offshore wind power. But
you also have fishers. You also have beach goers.
You also have cruise ships and shipping in
general, just trans-shipping in general. Then you have rivers.
I think is it the Tijuana River that empties out into
Yeah, right. And that's a river that has a lot
of stuff in it, let's just say. Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes.
It's a big unknown. Yeah. And it's a big
water area, but there's a lot of people on the coast, and
that has to be accounted for. So that's a
really interesting thing. But not a lot of people think about it. So when you talk about
your PhD, to even your family who are full of
PhDs, right? Like when you talk about that, do
they relate to eutrophication? Even friends and
stuff like that, do they relate to that? Because when you see people
studying oceanography, like a lot
of oceanographers, deep sea biology these days, and with the whole
deep sea mining and stuff, that becomes popular. Eutrophication always
seems like, water quality always seems, even though it's super important, it's
always at the lower end. Of of the scale when
like when it comes to interest until like a massive algal
Yeah Yeah, exactly exactly and I think
with Like having grown up so I grew up about an
hour and a half inland from LA like closer towards Palm
Springs so Even if, you
know, you don't go to the beach all the time, people know when it's
like, Oh, I heard there was a red tide. Like, Oh,
I heard there was, you know, and I do think or
something. Yeah. Yes. People are very
interested. I think it is. And you
know, with my research, I moved on to understanding
how eutrophication impacts kelp and people have so
many questions. They're like, yeah, I saw a bunch of kelp here and
why isn't kelp growing here anymore? And so
I will say, and especially in the sense that
water treatment contributes so
much nutrients to the ocean. And it's so important for
California. We're in South California like in a drought half the
time. So It is really important to
like have these conversations about what are we doing with our water? Where is
it going? People want to know about desalination. Um,
so I will say my, I'm grateful that my research is
usually really well-received to the
point where at my graduation party, I had to,
I was like, I gave a presentation on my research
to all my friends and family. And then I said, please, can we talk about anything
else through us? I love the
questions, but I have gotten so many the last, like, five
years. But yeah, I will say it's
well-received, especially to, as in
Southern California, it is very progressive with their water treatment standards.
It definitely goes far. The Ocean
Protection Council, OPC, is part of California
State Water Board. They're very aggressive in
treating their water, and it has paid off. So all
very interesting and again it's just like it all relates
because people care. If they don't
care about wastewater, they care about fish. Yeah.
And the quality of the water impacts where the fish are. And
everyone wants to know why there is stinky kelp on their beach or
why there isn't kelp where it used to be. You know, it's like all of these questions.
And with sharks in Southern California, they're like, what's the deal with the sharks? You
know, and that I know less about, but I do know about the fish. And I know
the fish are related to the primary production, which is
really the waste water. So it all kind of comes back together. So
usually people are like, what, like, tell me more.
Well, and that takes me to your communication, like
a side hustle or whatever it might be, people
asking you questions and your ability to answer
them in a way that's interesting for people. Mm-hmm.
How was that like, how did you develop that skill set? Is that just sort
of one of those things? You're like, I just enjoy telling stories and this
is just the way it comes out as I do it yeah,
I think the writing was on the wall. Looking back, for
example, I had science projects in elementary and middle
school and I would pretend to
be an oceanographer on TV or I would
be a TV meteorologist. I always
loved to communicate science. I
found it so interesting and I Always did kind of
have a knack for it. Um, it wasn't until it
was around kovat right when kovat was happening I had
I just started my PhD and I was
going to teach a class a general education class
at UCLA on climate change and this was like
a big class, like 400 students,
and most of them non-majors. So most of them like com
majors, psych majors. And frankly,
most of them go into, and I don't know if you have
any experience teaching a GE, but most students go into an
oceanography class or a climate change class not knowing
that it's going to be a lot of math and physics. Right. Right.
I'm going to learn about polar bears and whales. And it's
like, I Wanted to do a really good
job teaching yeah, and so I I started
a lecture series for my friends. And
this was the beginning of COVID where everyone was like, doing virtual happy
hours. And so I was like, Hey, friends,
like, I'm going to teach you about climate change, I'm going to have one
lecture a week, it's gonna be 30 or 45 minutes can be informal,
and I'm gonna Yeah. So
I practiced teaching first to
a general audience because I knew it's so hard
when you are deep in the science to remember that most people are
not like I, it is the
bane of my existence trying to get other scientists and
faculty, you know, remember that try and
remember a time where you didn't know anything about this and now explain
it. Yeah. Now explain it from square one. And so with
all of my friends from like every different, you
know, walk of life, I would give these lectures. And
that was super enjoyable. So that then morphed into,
um, that actually was really fun. And then after I
was done with my lectures, all of my friends each gave a lecture on something from
their industry, which was, um, but
from that, uh, lecture series, I made
a newsletter. And so I would do a newsletter every
like month or so related to climate change,
oceanographic stuff. Um, I went on
two oceanographic cruises, one with
the go ship program, which does repeat
cruises doing carbon, uh, measurements.
So they go on a couple of different routes all
around the world. And every like 10 years they
measure all the carbonate chemistry. and see how carbon is
changing in the ocean because it's sequestering carbon dioxide. So I
did that and I did a lot of newsletters when I was
on that cruise because people had so many questions. I was like, great, let me just do a
bunch of newsletters while I'm at sea. And I did the same thing. I had
another cruise with NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
That one was more mapping focused. Again,
I did a bunch of newsletters while I was doing that. But
all the while, I was still teaching that climate change
class at UCLA. And now in
person, but I had so many students tell me like,
page, you should start a tick tock. And I
was like, I wasn't even on tick tock. Right? I
was like, I don't know. I think I'm too old. Yeah. I
didn't even know who's on tick tock. I figured it was like all dancing. And
I have a girlfriend who
I love so dearly. She makes running content. She
was collegiate runner, and we became best friends.
And I told her, I was like, Well, actually, I'm thinking about starting a YouTube channel.
And she was like, Do not do that. She's like, I'm
on YouTube, YouTube, and I'm on Tick Tock. And let me tell you, no
one's gonna see your stuff on YouTube for years, right? You should make
a Tick Tock. It's a long game. Yeah, she's
like, if you want people to pay attention right now, you should make a Tick Tock. And
I was like, Okay, so It was born from
there. It's because she did it and then I
still wasn't, I still couldn't believe that ocean,
I figured oceanography was oversaturated on TikTok. I
was like, there's gotta be great ocean people
out there. I wasn't on it, so I didn't know who was doing, but
I figured, I was like, ah, so I started a channel actually making some
like undergrad college tips and
like PhD tips in terms of like, How do you apply to a
PhD program? How do you find a good advisor? What kind of workload
can you expect? So I was doing that
for about I don't know, half a year
And I had like a modest following, I think at like 20,000, 10,000 followers
or something, which is still, I know, I know we talk about TikTok being
20,000. It was, it was like cool that a lot of people felt like
they really trusted me. Um, Bob, I
think the blonde Bob is very endearing. I think people inherently
are like, she's not a threat. I
honestly believe that. I've had this haircut my whole life. I'm
like, I think this has some power. But
yeah, and then I was still doing, but I was doing
the separate newsletters about oceanography
stuff and then it was one of my dad's, one of my dad's like
old frat buddies, who I all consider to be uncles, he
sent me an email and he was like, What is the Atlantic
Mariana overturning circulation? And what is going on?
And I did a whole newsletter on it. And I was like,
let me just do the newsletters are super informal. And
so I was like, let me also just film a tick tock. And that tick tock, like blew up, I
got like a couple million views. And I was like, Oh, okay.
Do you want to hear about it? Yeah, I guess I
have the right expertise. And from there, it was, um, so
fun, so fun to put the videos together. And it
still, it just blew my mind every time that I was like, how
are hundreds of thousands or millions of people watching this? I'm so glad
they are. Um, but yeah, it
was just like, it just fit very well. And
again, a lot of it I think goes back to that teaching experience that
I had at the university level where it's like, how
do I get these college freshmen that are looking at me like
they want to die when I just told them how much physics they need to
learn, you know, like these intense equations to understand the
Earth. And I'm like, no, stay with me. Like, this is
actually really cool. I promise we can get through this.
Let me make an analogy. And
from there on out, it was like, yeah, it was it was
a good fit. And honestly, it really
blew up the last year of my Ph.D., my final
year, and it provided such a nice reprieve.
At times, because you're right, you're focused on writing at that point.
It's just stressful and you know
it's going to get done, but you don't feel like you can do it. And,
you know, every once in a while I'd be like, what if I make
a TikTok about thermal expansion of water? OK, let
me do that, you know, and I'd like take that, you know, take an hour to
like dally a little bit, but it ended up being like
very motivating and fun for me to do. So yeah,
With TikTok, it's almost like a style that people have, right?
Some people will have dancing videos. That's probably when
first people think about TikTok, they think of dancing videos. But
there's others who, there's political TikTok, there's science
TikTok, there's book talk, I think they call it. There's all
these different categories. And everybody has, within
each category, they have their own style. And lately, like
if I go back to your last probably like 30 videos, it's
very much like you need to learn about this. Like
you need to know, have you heard of this? And
it's like that nice hook where you're just like, oh no, I haven't heard of this.
I need to know about this. And then you go into a lot of detail in
your stories. Like useful information that
really makes the story interesting. How
long did it take for you to realize like, this
is like a fun formula for you to to like use,
but also a winning formula to in terms of
like getting people to view and watch and enjoy
Yeah, that, um, it really hit from
the first, like from I made a tick tock about,
so there was research released on the Atlantic meridional
overturning circulation, and that the flow
of warm water from the Gulf Stream up to the
Arctic region and how it subducts underneath the
North Atlantic. And a report came out about how
it's potentially shutting down, how it's very concerning. And
I was like, OK, let me make a
TikTok on this. If I say Atlantic Meridional
Overturning Circulation, swipe immediately. I was like, OK,
no. So I forget what I
took a screenshot of the headline that I had seen that
it was on like CNN or something. It was like a very dramatic headline.
It was like Ocean Circulation May Shut Down and
da da da da da. And I started to tick tock like
It's a green screen and my face was on it. And
which is like, the way it started was a lot of people's initial
reaction, which would be just like, Oh, no, like,
I guess I waited a second. Yeah, so I
waited a second for people to be able to read the headline. Yeah, which
is crazy. And like, you know, if it worked for
the article? Yeah, it'll work for my tick tock, right? Like people
will be invested. So I read that I was like, Oh,
no. And then I was like, Here's what this means. Let's
break down why this is an alarming thing. So
that format worked great. And my
whole style is talk a little bit, green screen,
point to figure, talk, point, show. I've
always been a very visual learner, but also too,
again, with teaching, I find that as little text
as possible. Pictures, like
tell a visual story. TikTok is a visual app.
So I knew that obviously what I had, what
I said had to be engaging, but also I wanted to
be able to be like, Look at me, now look at this, now
look at me. And I didn't know at the time it was a
winning formula, but after I've grown
in popularity, people are like, oh, did you know? Yeah, it's so smart
of you to show your face because people like to see your face online
because it makes them feel like they know you better. And it's like all
these things that I was just doing, just giving
these sentence, sentence, sentence. Changing
the pictures. I didn't realize what I was doing was a winning thing
to do until I'd made like a couple Good
videos, which I enjoyed and I was like, oh This
seems to be working. Um, but I will say yeah,
the hardest part of my videos is the hook is
like, yeah where do I begin because I find
everything interesting, but there's so many
crazy fascinating stories about the ocean and the atmosphere
and our climate that I could tell. But the
hook on TikTok, it's like you lose people in the first three
Well, people are just scrolling with their thumb, right? Like, if that, if
that. It's almost like half a second. They don't like what they see. If something
on the page doesn't capture them. You know like
I've watched videos on just even YouTube shorts where people are like if
you zoom in right away then people start to you know that that catches the
eye if you Walk into the scene that catches the eye
or something pops up that catches the eye Something really has
to catch because if not, they're just I'm off to the next video without
thinking of the rest, you know Yeah, so that's that's the art because
once I start talking I can tell a lot of stories but
Most successful videos the most successful is that I figured out the
hook I like knew the way in and it played my cards, right?
No not easy to do at all Like
and when you start to look at some of your videos like you said to
look and you're like I've got some good views on
here like there, you know, yeah, I'm looking at them now and
your average you're like averaging a At
least, you know, in the thousands, sometimes multiple thousands,
like I'm looking at 45, you know, 16, 70. And every
once in a while, you just start 2.5 million. You know,
you have one to 7.2 million. You know, it's
insane to think about. How people
like how many people are watching these videos, I
And you know the funny thing is, and I tell this to my friends all the time, I've now,
I'm now like whatever, a published author. I have like a couple first
author papers for my PhD. No one is
going to read my dissertation cover to cover, other than me. Millions
of people will watch my TikTok. And
for all the academics that are hesitant with
science communication, it's like, OK, I understand it's hard
teaching old dog new tricks, but I'm going
to get maybe 1,000 eyes on my best
paper at the end of the year, maybe. If it
blows up, but I just like talk
to four million people about Atlantic
marine overturning circulation, which I never
in my wildest dreams would have thought. And I think also the
cool thing about it too, that I definitely don't take for granted is
that it's reaching so many people that do
not know about the ocean. Like it's so easy to
forget. I grew up in Southern California. I've always loved the ocean.
I'm in a scientific family, but most of
our world, most of the United States does not live. I mean,
well, there's statistics about most of the world. It's like 30% of the
world population lives on a coastline, but you know, but
most of us do not know the ocean though. Yeah, exactly like
the educational background and I think a lot of scientists Assume
prior knowledge or like they've been in their bubble
for so long even when it comes to like climate change communication Like
obviously it affects everybody but let's not forget a lot of
people first of all haven't been in school for a long time Yeah, so
you're trying to tell them about Earth's like retaining
its long wave radiation. Stop right there. You lost
95% of the population when you said that. Um, so
when I see like these views on my videos, I'm like, Oh,
this is so cool. And my goal too,
is not just to like have people walk, like, obviously it's
great to have people watch and people like ocean people will
continue to drink the Kool-Aid. But what really gets me is when people are like, Not
ocean people, you know, they grew up there like in Indiana or
there some landlocked country and they're like This
is so interesting. I never knew this about the ocean that to me
is like That's really cool because I could
yeah, I could I the people that drink the Kool-Aid drink the Kool-Aid and that's great but
that's the crazy thing about TikTok that's like I could reach
a random person in random country that just
learned something about the ocean and maybe that sparked a little something in
them to just be more vigilant of their climate,
their environment, the ocean around them like that is
And it is. It's really interesting, especially like it's an opportunity for
education. But again, you do it in a very entertaining way. You
know, you feel I feel good after I listen to these
these episodes, you know, like this. And I know like you're like, oh, that's
what I want people to do. But, you know, when you talk about oceans, a lot
of the times there's a lot of doom and gloom when we talk about oceans. Right.
Like, you know, you can see the big documentaries that have been, you
know, Emmy award winning documentaries. There's a lot of doom and gloom. I
mean, I think David Attenborough had the
world crying when he put out Blue Planet 2 and that
poor sperm whale calf died of plastic pollution
What are you doing to us? But
when you are able to connect things that
are interesting to people. We were talking about this before we pressed record. I was just watching
your video on the Resolute Desk in the White House.
never would have thought that had an ocean connection to
it. And it's not directly with the ocean, but it's an important
part of history, not only American history, but Canadian history,
of people trying to find that Northwest Passage. And you get your
map fix in there, and you talk about a different map, and you
have those. I think it's really good. I think what you're able
to do, and this is what Randy Olson has been talking about for years. He's
a big science communication guy in marine science.
And it's all about getting people's emotions involved. Getting not
just necessarily the bad emotions, like the sad emotions, but getting the curiosity
emotion. You got some good humor in there too. You
got some funny bits that you do as well. But
it's really great that you're able to Communicate that
and it's not just straight-up facts. It's here's facts
in an interesting way Did you ever think about this or did you know about
this? And I've seen some creators do that, too there's another
creator who does a lot about like the world wars and like historical wars
and he has this way of like Really getting into
it and he always starts did you know about this and did you
know about it? It's just like and people like oh, this is really really
interesting. I Yeah, yeah, it's cool to
do that kind of stuff, but there's a lot of work involved in
putting these videos together You can't do this in like five minutes Give
me an average. I know it probably varies. But yeah,
how long do you spend? With these is this a
Yeah, so This is a great question. So I'll
take you through the whole process because now I have like a whole way
of doing it. Um, I will Either
think of a question or someone will ask me a question. For
example, like the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation.
Someone will be like, what the heck is that? So I'll
think of a question or someone will ask a question in the comments. I had
a really popular one about what
is the bottom of the sea floor? How deep is the sand? And I
was like, oh, actually, it's not sand. It's dead
organic matter. question and
then I'll put together like the key. I'll break
it down in terms of like what science, what physics and
chemistry does a person need to know to appreciate how
complex this is. Maybe they need to know about
how organic matter decomposes. Maybe they need to know about
how there's no light in the ocean. So I think about like, what are all the key
facts that go into truly understanding this?
Um, I have to find some decent figures that
doesn't take too long. Um, but I'll
make one sheet that has all the
pictures that I would like to show and
I'll just screenshot all the pictures. And then I think about, How
am I going to say this? But what takes a long time is thinking of the hook, for
sure. Yeah, and then
filming it never takes more than 30 minutes, 20 minutes,
30 minutes. I will say, I have a huge
depth of prior knowledge, so there's very little that I really
need to research when it comes to true science questions. I
do love maritime history and naval history, and
I think it's ocean exploration. I think that's a really important and cool
way to bring people into oceanography is to
help us all appreciate how little we
know about the ocean, how long we have tried to
learn about it. So those take
a little bit more time, but I live and
breathe. I just finished a book about cod. I'm now
reading a book about how the US government in
the Cold War invested billions into oceanography. I'm always
reading things about the oceans to build up the
knowledge base and to find like, oh, I should tell people about this.
Yeah. So from start to finish, I'll
have a couple ideas brewing for
couple weeks at a time. But truthfully, the best
ideas and the best videos do come to me in a flash where
I'm like, Oh, uh, I need to tell the story
right now. For example, I've always been fascinated with
how Robert Ballard found the Titanic. Such a
cool story. Most people don't know that he was like actually looking for
remnants of nuclear submarines that had been lost from cold war. I
think that's such a cool story. It's always been in my head, but then like
I didn't know how do I bring people into that? And it
was the day before Thanksgiving and I was with my boyfriend's
family and they're asking me all these like great questions about oceanography
and stuff. And then it just came to me. I was like,
Oh, I should just like do this dumb hook where
I say that you should talk about this at Thanksgiving. Like I was
like, This is what you're going to talk about this Thanksgiving. And
that video got like three million views because people
were like, what? And then I'm like, the
Titanic sank, right? And so like, yeah,
but cover to cover, it'll take anywhere between like,
if it's a brilliant flash, it'll take an hour. If it's
Yeah, I can just imagine that Thanksgiving one just like
so yeah, you know the Titanic sank Did you guys know this like and
then I'll go through the story That's I feel like that's one of
the things that you just like that comes out of nowhere Like why would people want
Yeah, I'll stay Because if I started if
I started my videos being like let me tell you the history of
The discovery of the Titanic like yeah, I'm gonna keep the history nerds,
Like, how am I gonna swing this around? Yeah, and
do so in an exciting way too. Getting back to your point about my
attitude and my videos, I think I find
the gloom and doom, although definitely
warranted sometimes, right? It is heavy stuff
and it's concerning things. I
think about this a lot, which is that it's
not fear to a certain degree is not a
good motivational tool. And I,
so when I was at the second year of my PhD, the
first year of my PhD, I took a class that
was really interesting as a graduate level class on how
true leaders in the environmental or sustainability movements
have like, how do they do a good job? Because
from a marketing standpoint, climate change got
off on a bad foot. The
analogy was compared to like the space race. Let's
think about the space race for a second. That motivated all of America.
Like the public approval of spending billions of
dollars to send a man to space, which like I'm a
And it was unheard of at that point. Like it was like, can we really do this? Yeah,
Everyone was motivated. I was like, yeah, this is a crazy scientific
challenge to guest and public approval widespread.
Now I think about that all the time. Like getting
people excited is not for nothing. And even, You
know, I could paint all of my stuff in a way scarier light.
And even still, some people sometimes people are like, Why are you smiling when
you like say all this heavy stuff? But
I do think it's like, well, I don't want to, I don't think freaking
people out is the answer. I think getting people to appreciate like,
No, this is a big problem, but also here's here
why the complexity of this are so interesting. And maybe that inspires
you to just learn more. I think
learning is like the start of actually making change happen.
Yeah. But yeah, I mean, you can't market
everything in a positive light. I'm not saying like the positive thing.
It's not fun like the space race. But I
do go back to that all the time when I'm making my content. I'm like, how do
I talk about something that's like a little bit the Atlanta Mariano overturning
circulation. That's scary. That would be really freaky if that shut
down. But instead of saying that, I'm
going to say, this is a really interesting, complex
phenomenon that goes on in our climate, and you
should know what it does. Instead of if you want to get it.
Instead of just being fearful that somebody's thing is going to stop and the world is going
Yes. Yes. Yes. Because I feel like that kind of communication has
only gotten more polarized, as with everything, where
it's like, I can't believe you don't care about this. This is so bad. And
then the other side being like, well, you know, this isn't
our fault. Why are you saying the world is an ending data that I'm like, how
do we lower the volume? Yeah, I'd be like, talk about
why this is interesting. People can draw their own conclusions and
For sure. And especially if you're just educating, here's the process. Here's
how it works. And here's what people are saying is slowing
down and what that means. And then you can just
explain it a little bit more instead of, I mean, that headline was
fearful. I remember that headline coming. It wasn't only on CNN. It
Everywhere. Yeah. And that headline seems to come up every once in a while. It's
Every time a new study comes out, they're like, let's swipe this
up. scary the crap out of everybody, which
again, it's like I, you know, and part of it too is like you
can't, I don't believe scientists can be frustrated at people for
not having the correct amount of empathy for a
problem if they didn't educate people in the first place. Like
you can't, you know, you need to meet people in the
middle. And if you're not going to, then I don't think you have a right to
be so frustrated because not everyone got a PhD in
climate science you know so you need to like meet somewhere in
the middle and I think the education is the first step so it's I so
enjoy being here at this point where I can like help
Well, I'll tell you, we love it. I'm gonna say that
from your audience as a representative from your audience, not that
I represent your audience, loves it. And then you can tell just by the
views and the consistent views that you're getting and the increased views that you're
getting on a regular basis. It's just absolutely wonderful to
watch you work, to be able to... you know, talk about
science in the way that you do. It's so much fun. Like I said, I'm a
huge, huge fan. And like just hearing your PhD and
hearing the enthusiasm that you have for science in
general and science for eutrophication and sort
of coastal eutrophication, I'm looking forward to seeing what you're
able to do and what you're going to be able to do with the next job
that you have. You know, you just finished your PhD like three months
And so I'm going to ask the fun questions, like
I think
Um, I know for a fact
that I think my, my skills, you know, most people
that know me personally, they're like, so you're going to be a
professor, right? Um, like, Oh, so you're going to
teach for the rest of your life, which I mean, in a perfect world,
if I could just make interesting tech talks, like I'd
be so happy doing that. But as of right now, it
doesn't really pay the bills. And I do want to
put my efforts to work on
a specific project. So for example, I've been really interested
in offshore wind. really interested in offshore wind. I think that
is the direction. Energy is critical to everybody.
We will run out of fossil fuel. How do
we find a good way to use ocean as an energy
resource without like causing any detrimental impacts? I
am so fascinated with that. So for example, like an
ideal job I applied for a couple months ago was
offshore wind environmental expert. Like I would love
to help you know, site offshore wind farms, I'd
love to be there for the full process and understand the oceanography,
Even just spatial analysis of how to locate them. Yeah.
Yes, exactly. You know, how far can you be from shore? Will the
other turbines interact with each other? Do they interact with any
Exactly. I don't want to interact with fishing. So those questions fascinate
me. I'd love to do something like that. Yeah. That's
where my aim is right now. So currently I'm living in Boulder, Colorado.
I loved Southern California, but I spent pretty much my entire life
there. I like grew up there. I went to UCSB, I went to UCLA,
I've lived in San Diego, and I just wanted to see
something new. Boulder, Colorado has the
National Renewable Energy Lab, which is the Department
of Energy, the U.S. Department of Energy, that's their primary renewable
energy research facility. So that is
out here. That's honestly my top choice. I would love, love, love
to work there. There's a big NOAA office
here, the Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. I'm already
in the process for interviewing for a job there. There's
the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Yeah, crossing my fingers. So
it's kind of surprising. A lot of people are like, why are you in Colorado as an oceanographer? There's
actually a shocking amount of atmospheric and oceanic science that goes on
Yeah, and I was just gonna say there's like a big like ocean
Proponent there like just in terms of the people I mean,
it's very similar to California fine where there's a lot of people who are nature focused
You know Rockies hiking that kind of stuff, but also there are
a lot of ocean advocates in In Colorado,
so you're not alone like in terms of that. Yeah, let your level
of oceanography knowledge might be you might be
I'd also do a lot of science communication, and it's been really fun, at least these
last two months, to give it all the time I can. But at the same time, I think it'll naturally
grow over time. I'm at this interesting point, though, where I'm like, well, Do
I grow it more and like how much do I grow it? And
I know there's an audience for it. Um, you
know, another like pipe dream or like offshoot
life, I would love to like have an
ocean show someday on TV or be like
a talking head for discovery or,
you know, I'd love to continue to like educate
people about the ocean on a broader scale. And I
do, like similar to my PhD, I'm like, I know that'll come. I
know I can make it there. Yes, exactly. I'm manifesting
it. But in the meantime, I don't think I have
the chops to do only science communication, to
be self-employed. I A
Yeah, hey, I get it.
It's a long process. It could be a traumatic process, looking
at all the stuff that you have to do. A lot of people say it's basically working two
jobs in one, maybe even plus that, like even more. You know,
it's a lot to handle for anybody, and you
did that. Plus, you developed a science communication channel that
is blowing up, and it continues to blow up. And I'm
looking forward to seeing what you're up to next. Like, it's going to be
fingers crossed for all the opportunities that you're involved with now, and
hopefully it continues. And hopefully your
enthusiasm for the science communication continues as well, because
it's been a pleasure to watch those videos. I enjoy it,
and I'm sure the 7 million people that watch your
Thank you, yes. Of anything, that is
Yeah, I think so. I think that's what it sounds like.
But honestly, Paige, it's been a pleasure to have you on the podcast
and to get to know you more. And I look forward to having you
back on when you get that job or once you
develop the science more and the science communication more.
Yeah, you know once you let people know how they can get a hold of you. There's the
Which yeah, just like let them know the handle and how they can look you up Yeah,
the handle for the tick-tock is little LIL ocean
page or you could look up PhD page II And
I also have an Instagram that is the same
handle LIL ocean page And
I'm starting to put my videos on YouTube Shorts, so you can find me there. And
who knows, maybe I'll get bored and actually start making long-form YouTube
videos someday. I'm not sure if I'll ever
do that. Maybe a podcast in the future. Part of me wants to, so who knows what
Love it. Love it. I can see story time with Paige, ocean story time with Paige.
Well, Paige, it's been a pleasure. We're looking forward to seeing what you're up to next.
Thank you, Paige, for joining us today on the How to Protect the Ocean podcast to
talk about not only your PhD work, but your science communication work. I
think it's really important for scientists to have both, sort
of that skill set, using the skills that they have, using their personality to
bring out the messaging that they want to bring out. And that's something
that Paige does. So again, her handle is at
LilOceanPage, so L-I-L-O-C-E-A-N. Ocean page
PA IGE obviously all one word you can
go on tick tock you can also go on Instagram to follow her I highly suggest
that you do She's gonna be up to some pretty incredible things through
her career. It's just she's just scratching the surface literally
just dipping a toe in and I can't wait till she dives in and and we get to
hear all about it. So if you have any questions or comments about
this episode, please feel free to leave a comment
on, if you're watching this on Spotify on the video, or if you're just listening to
it, you can leave comments. You can also leave a comment on the YouTube video and
you can get ahold of me on Instagram at HowToProtectTheOcean, that's
at HowToProtectTheOcean on Instagram, just DM me, I'd
love to hear your feedback on this episode and any other episode of
the podcast. feel free to reach out I
appreciate Paige reaching out, and I would love to hear from you. Whether
you want to be on the podcast or not, because you've got something interesting that you think is interesting, or
you just want to give feedback or talk about the ocean, this
is where we start that conversation. And we did a great job doing it today. I
want to hear from you what you think about the ocean, and what you would like to hear more
about, or what you would like to talk about. Hit me up
at HowToProtectTheOcean on Instagram. Thank you so much for
joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Have
a great day. We'll talk to you next time. Of course, my name is Andrew Lewin. Have a