Today we’d like to introduce you to Morgan Knowles.
Morgan, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I guess I was destined to become who I am today as a young child growing up on the beach. Since then, I’ve pretty much dedicated my life to understand the complex yet captivating questions of the sea and spread as much knowledge as I could to the people around me. In High School, I joined our Marine Science Club who often made trips to Florida’s amazing freshwater springs and to the Keys which sparked a curiosity for scuba diving and I haven’t looked back since! Scuba diving has changed my life; It brought an entirely new perspective to the table (from a fish’s point of view) which was so vast, alluring, thrilling, and awe-inspiring I decided that was what I wanted to do with my life, become a scientific mermaid.
My professional career began with a Bachelor’s of Science (BS) in Marine Science at East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania with fieldwork in Wallops Island Marine Consortium, followed by my Masters (MS) in Marine Biology concentrating on coral reef ecology, restoration, and marine debris. 350+ logged dives (~200 being scientific) later, I had the extraordinary opportunity to work on many scientific diving/research positions (sediments, coral restoration, sea turtles, reef fish census, marine algae etc.) and educator/coordinator positions educating South Florida’s youth about our unique, exciting yet fragile ecosystems and how to protect them.
After my master thesis research on marine debris, its presence on the Florida Reef tracts and on local beaches and its effect on the marine environment, I was hired by Youth Environmental Alliance (YEA). YEA is a local environmental education non-profit which gives me the opportunity to educate students all over Broward County on environmental sciences. YEA is also the lead non-profit spearheading coastal restoration efforts in Broward county planting over 40,000 sea oats onto our beaches and over 4,000 back into our mangrove forests which is pretty amazing.
I am also a big ocean educator and activist with Surfrider Foundation with the Broward County Chapter as the Ocean Friendly Restaurant Program Coordinator. For the past year and a half, I have working with local commissioners, state legislators and restaurants to help our community break free from single-use plastic and expanded polystyrene foam which is polluting our oceans and opt for reusable biodegradable options in restaurants. I also am a regular author in Barnacle Babes magazine as a featured “Warrior Woman of the Sea”, where I write about ocean conservation issues and help empower woman in the field of ocean sciences. I also blog and represent Planet Love Life, a marine debris salvage and awareness organization that collects derelict fishing nets and rope and creates them into awareness bracelets.
I swim in a lot of different pools (so to speak) working with a variety of agencies, conservation groups, and non-profits with a wide variety of skills in my toolbox. I have learned a lot from each of my experiences and will continue to learn and grow. I have always been (and always will be) an extremely curious being. Whatever the future holds, I will be willing try new and exciting things that satisfy my passion and drive to conserve and protect our oceans.
Has it been a smooth road?
It’s never a smooth road with me, haha. I seem to be an obstacle attractant; where I seem to always pick the path LEAST traveled and end up running through the gauntlet of my life. It is a weird tendency I tend to gravitate through by no fault of my own and the way I think. But, it has also allowed me to see incredible things, travel to the most beautiful places and to use my brain in ways that most people cannot.
As a kid, I dealt with ADHD and mild dyslexia which made school a little harder than what most experience, However, due to my hypervigilance and out of the box thinking, in a way, it helped me stand out with critical thinking and create non-traditional solutions to problems that otherwise wouldn’t have been overlooked.
Unfortunately, during my masters, I had a series of unfortunate events with family & health issues that stirred up some really heavy mental blocks. At this point at around 26 years old, I continued to deal with adult ADHD and dyslexia but the added benefit of depression and panic disorder during my masters which created pretty significant negative impacts on my research, my drive and my will to persevere.
The ocean at that low point in my carrier became more than just my research. It was my home. It was my therapist. It was work but also a place to play. Most importantly, it was my source of power. I forced myself to visit the beach every day to meditate, to relax, and let go of all the stress and horrible things happening in my life and in the world; to be more present. With support from family and friends and a lot of therapy, I made it out on the other side, stronger and more accepting than ever before. There are still times I struggle (pretty hard) and I will continue to and that is OKAY. I will always be able to look back and respect the power of the sea and use it to help me in the future.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
Currently, I work for two organizations; Youth Environmental Alliance (YEA) as an Educator, Fishing Program Manager and Media/Outreach Coordinator and also Nova Southeastern University’s Oceanographic Center (NSUOC) as a Research Assistant scientific diving monitoring fish and coral populations on Southeast Floridas reef systems. My Surfrider Foundation, Barnacle Babes, and Planet Love life work is all volunteer.
At YEA, I help facilitate our environmental education programs by coordinating with school teachers, camp directors, and community groups while also educating our STEM curriculum in the classroom (or in the field). I help run our Fishing Programs and clinics where I teach underprivileged schools and at-risk kids about ethical angling, fish biology, fishing regulations, habitat, baiting & tying knots and take them out fishing to foster a deeper relationship with nature. I am also their photographer and videographer creating content for social media, I tend their data management systems, create newsletters, and other administrative duties.
For NSUOC I help day to day boat operations to carry out research via scientific diving on two projects, Reef Fish Visual Census (RVC) & National Coral Reef Assesment and Monitoring Program (NCRMP). Both of these projects are funded under NOAA Southeast Fisheries sector and is multi-agency effort to provide data on reef condition for reef fishes, corals and benthic habitat (i.e. fish species composition/density/size, benthic cover, and coral density/size/condition). We scuba dive from 10-100ft of water identifying hardbottom structures to collect data on fish and benthic communities and we are also responsible for topside data entry
I guess what I am known for at YEA is my flamboyant, energetic, and humorous way of educating during school programs. I have always sort of been eccentric and silly during educational programs as I find I can better connect with the audience when I can laugh it off if I make a mistake, or be able to quickly improve is something doesn’t go to plan.
Being able to immerse myself in my lesson and not worry about how I look or how I sound makes it not only more fun and exciting for the kids, but also more enjoyable and fun for me as well. When I am in educator mode, I am all in and the kids can feel it; they sit up, their eyes wake up and brows start expressing a look like “whoa this chick is nuts” sort of look. This is what I think I am most proud of. My ability to catch these kids in their tracks, keep their attention and show them they have the power to create change.
When that light bulb goes off, you know you did your job, and you did your job well. Many of our students go on to start their high school senior thesis on work inspired by our programs which is super cool.
As for NSUOC, I am sort of the comedic relief, a dependable diver, and on-call emergency responder. I have always been the good ball aboard and seems to help team moral on those really rough, stormy or long days. However in the event, something happens out at sea, I have been trained for many years on dive protocol and emergency response and am confident in my ability to prevent issues from arising. I have always been there for my team and my team has always been there for me; this makes for safe diving, sound science and the ability to enjoy the endless blue around you.
I am most proud of my ability to not only remember all of South Florida’s fish and coral to species (that is a lot of Latin) but the fact that I am contributing to science in a way that is making ACTUAL change in our local and state legislation; makes me feel like a superhero! Our data goes directly towards protecting fish and coral populations by revising current reef protection regulations and enacting legislation to aid in our coral reefs for rapid response teams for coral disease. Unfortunately, this also exposes us to see what is truly happening in our oceans, which further drives me to show people whats happening down there to help secure their fate for future generations to enjoy.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
South Florida is an excellent place to become an environmental educator and/or environmental scientist. Honestly, we all should be environmentalists, right? We all live on this big blue planet. Shouldn’t we all care about what happens to it? We live in a heavily urbanized tourist destination but also in a place that is heavily surrounded by colorful communities and cultures from all over the world! These are perfect conditions to utilize the power of people to enact really powerful environmental change from a variety of angles.
We all love our home, the oceans, our rivers and springs, our green spaces and the urbanized ones. Using your voice to educate and show the masses how amazing South Florida is will help foster environmental stewardship for years to come. Realizing we can work WITH nature not against it is a very powerful tool that most Floridians don’t get the opportunity to witness. That’s when environmental educators and scientists come into play.
Unfortunately due to our impact as humans to our local ecosystems, now more than ever do we need people to not only research, conserve and protect these incredibly unique ecosystems, we need people to educate our communities, youth and lawmakers to help make sure we do not over-use our resources, pollute our local habitats and lead to ecosystem collapse.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.yeafrog.org
- Phone: (609)709-1387
- Email: Morgan.C.Knowles@gmail.com
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