Interview

On my first visit to Nova Southeastern’s Oceanographic Center, I was so excited to be there. There was hardly anyone around and when a boy, who looked like a student, walked by I politely said, “Excuse me,” and told him about my Comp 2000 project. He gave me a woman’s email that goes by the name of Missy. Her real name is Melissa Dore and she is the Departmental Administrator of the center. I emailed her and she kindly volunteered to let me interview her.
As the Departmental Administrator, she is in charge of the graduates, the budget, research and statistical data, she updates the academic schedule on the online calendar, confers student’s degrees, and more. In college, Missy obtained a biology degree and a minor in English literature. Through time her interest in marine biology naturally progressed because since she was a child she has lived on the water. At the center there really is no such thing as a typical day. Each day brings something new to the table, but of course there are simple daily tasks that must be done, such as checking your email. Lab research, dive journeys, studying, classes, and maintenance are other rituals that most likely happen quite often at the center. As for research projects, there are several people who go out on the dives and some people who stay in and study what was obtained out in the field. Only 1 percent of the student population of Nova, study at the center and 75 percent of all grants go to them. The center just recently received a $15 million dollar grant from NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) to construct a new building for the center. The three-story building will be called the Center of Coral Excellence with coral labs, classrooms, and offices. It is a $30 million dollar building and Nova is going to match what NIST has already granted.
As for the students, usually after graduating 20 percent of them go for their PhD. Some go into the consulting field, but a majority of them receive state, county, and federal jobs and some work for NOAA fisheries. Obviously, people do not go into this field for the paycheck, but for the love and degree of concern of the environment. Marine biologists tend to be on more of the adventurous side and love to go out exploring and diving. This field is so important because the ocean has the most biodiversity than other ecosystem in the world. Coral reefs are the rainforests of the sea and you can find more biodiversity in corals than in any tropical rainforest. Marine biology is also one of the fewest and most rare fields studied and there is so much information to be learned and researched to enhance the world’s knowledge. The center is doing just that. All the research they do is put out to inform the people. They have peer review publications, articles, seminars, conferences, and also the Dean of the center has written and published a book. Nova’s program at the Oceanographic center has benefited not only Missy, but also the students in so many ways. They have active research, great grants to be able to conduct the research, hands on techniques and not always just in the classroom, a good networking system, the opportunity to travel abroad, and the center has the family sense. Missy has been working at the center for 18 years and has seen it progress and grow so much because it is now 4 times the size it used to be. She says that she loves the center and would not have it any other way because they all know each other, it is in a great location, you never know what will happen from day to day and, “I get to be in the center of it all.”



http://marinebio.org/

http://www.nova.edu/ocean/