Biological Oceanographer, Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science
Sonia's role in Gulf Watch Alaska:
Environmental Drivers Principal Investigator
Important skills for her position:
Basic science training, interest in small things, interest in seeing both "big pictures" and patterns
Challenges in her work:
"Anything to do with studying the ocean is challenging because you can’t sample enough of it to really understand what is going on. So trying to understand what’s going on across the horizontal region, down through the water column, and through time is really hard because they all change, all of the time."
Sonia's advice to young people interested in science: "If you have a questioning mind and you like looking at the way the world works, then you are a scientist. How you use that in a career could be anything from teaching, to talking with politicians to try and get policies that will help a community - there are so many different things. I would just say that it may not be the dry and dusty thing that you think it is. You can be a scientist and have a huge range of careers. If you are interested in things like that, keep your mind open for opportunities where you can use science."
Sonia Batten discusses one of the coolest things about the ocean. (0:31)
I think the coolest thing is that you can take a bucket of seawater, you can filter out the stuff and put it under a microscope and show people and they go, “Oh my god, I didn’t know I was swimming with that!”
You can look at a crab larvae, a little tiny crab before it settles out under the microscope, and it’s got, some of them have spines that are three times the length of their body sticking out, and they look like alien things, and you have no idea that you’re swimming with that kind of thing, and yeah – I think that’s cool.