This is a top secret location, appropriate for my top secret book.

0. I’m Writing a Book!

I really am. It’s a book about oceanography without all of that annoying math. It’s for everyone who loves and cares about the ocean but really has no idea how it works. That’s all I can tell you for now because it’s top secret. For now, you can follow me on twitter @DrMermaid.

Teaching geological history at the Sacred World Interdependence Day Festival (2009)

1. Earth Science Education
I’m teaching geology at Touro College! I love it because my students are from non-science backgrounds but get really excited about the subject. For two years, I had an National Science Foundation fellowship called LEEFS that allowed me to work once a week in a New York City middle school. At my school, I help out during science class, work with the teachers to enhance their curriculum, and help run the after-school science club. During the course of this fellowship, I’ve been on two research expeditions at sea. During each of those, I blogged about it so that my kids (and other readers) could ask questions learn from my experiences in Antarctica and the Philippines. I’m not actively blogging now that I’m back on dry land, but you can still read the posts at Ms. T @ Sea.

Another rainy Columbia graduation

2. Ocean & Climate Physics

I hold a doctorate in Ocean and Climate Physics from Columbia University. My research focuses on the Indonesian Throughflow, which is an important but poorly understood part of global ocean circulation. As a graduate student, I used data from SODA, which combines long-term ocean observations with a computer model, to predict the Indonesian Throughflow as measured by INSTANT, a three-year intensive observational study. That study was published in the Journal of Climate in 2009. I then took the same data and analyzed how much energy the Indonesian Throughflow actually transports and how it varies with El Niño. That study is in press at Dynamics of Atmospheres and Oceans. My third paper, a comprehensive overview of the Indonesian Throughflow, has been accepted for publication by the Geological Society of London but is not yet available online.

3. Research Cruises

That's me and Flo on the ice (2010)

I’ve been on six scientific research cruises in the Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean, South China Sea, and Southern Ocean.That’s a total of 200 days at sea!

While at sea, I measure ocean velocity using acoustics and I gather profiles of temperature, salinity, and other ocean processes. In this photo, Flo and I are on sea ice, not land. That means that there is about a foot or two of ice underneath us, and then a whole lot of ocean.

Performing a solo at Sacred Landscapes of the Body (2011)

4. Tribal Fusion Bellydance

I have been dancing at Solstice Studio for a few years now and I love it! I perform regularly with my tribes and I have choreographed four of my own solos. There’s no way that I could have survived graduate school without dancing. Dancing has given me unique opportunities as a scientist and an educator. I taught a class on natural history at Sacred World Interdependence Day, a music and arts festival at which I also performed as a dancer. And I got to be both dancer and oceanographer at Kai Altair‘s Mermaid Lagoon, a fundraiser for the Gulf Coast and at the Hudson River Pageant Benefit. At those types of events, I generally perform as my alter ego, Dr. Mermaid.  I also work with House of the Roses to teach dance to children living in homeless shelters.