Shayle Matsuda

I've been studying corals formally for four years during this degree.

But I've been studying.

interested in corals for much longer.

And I've studied corals as a volunteer researcher at the California Academy of Sciences on expeditions and volunteer expeditions, actually kind of like Alice Obscura, as a younger person.

That's a good question, too.

So I grew up just outside of Chicago, where even though I felt like I was growing up on a body of water, like Michigan, it's not a marine environment.

It's a freshwater environment.

So I wasn't growing up swimming on coral reefs.

But for me, looking back,

My first taste of the ocean was growing up and going to the Shedd Aquarium and seeing all the exhibits there.

I think that's a really common thread that you hear for a lot of us who pursue degrees in marine biology.

Most of us in the United States aren't lucky enough to grow up on a coral reef.

A lot of our first exposures to this, especially those of us before the YouTube era and whatnot, was going to our local aquariums and really seeing these organisms that you don't even read about.

the ocean.

It's interesting.

I'm going to give you my journey story and you can like hack this up.

It's a journey story.

So I had one of those moments where like I I was always drawn to nature, being outside and playing outside.

I was a very like I was not a video game kid.

I was a