MOD Postdoc Spotlight: Filipe Pereira

Filipe in front of the island of Jan Mayen during the 2023 NORSE cruise.

What is your background and what are you working on at the moment?
I started studying biology for my undergrad at the State University of Feira de Santana in Northeast Brazil, which is closer to Alagoinhas, Bahia, where I come from. However, I slowly realized that physics was perhaps more my thing, or rather, it was my mother who noticed that I wasn't very happy with biology. She saw a newspaper article about a major in oceanography at the Federal University of Bahia in the state capital and suggested that it might be more my thing. I applied, got in, and was introduced to physical oceanography in one of the first classes I took there and I loved it. I also started working as a research assistant in a lab with a professor who told me that if I wanted to pursue physical oceanography, I should go to the University of São Paulo (USP) where there were more courses and more focused research. So, I transferred to São Paulo and finished my undergraduate degree and was also lucky enough to get to do a six-month exchange program at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth (UMassD). By then I knew physical oceanography was my thing, so I jumped straight into a PhD when I got back. I earned my doctorate from the dual degree program between USP and UMassD about a year ago and joined the MOD lab at Scripps last fall.

At the moment I have a fellowship from the University of California to work on red tides. Because my background includes both biological and physical oceanography, I’ve been working a lot with biological-physical interactions at meso- and submesoscales before. One of the questions I’m thinking about is how the biology can influence the ocean physics. At Scripps, I’m now working with professors Jen MacKinnon and Drew Lucas on using optics to investigate how phytoplankton could be affecting stratification and how that might be a mechanism that sustains red tides.

Filipe at his PhD thesis defense.

What keeps you excited and interested in working in the field of oceanography?
I really like going to sea. My degree was technically in observational oceanography, but because of the pandemic, I had to switch over to doing more modeling. Now that fieldwork is a possibility again, I’m excited to get to be in touch with the object I’m studying, the ocean. I didn’t grow up by the coast so for me it always felt like a special thing to go to the ocean, especially when you get to be involved in the kind of bigger research cruises that involve a lot of people from different countries, it’s great!

When you were a kid, did you expect to be a scientist or engineer?
I can’t say I “expected” it, but maybe I can say that I “dreamt” of being a scientist? As a kid, I enjoyed watching documentaries on TV and was generally curious, but the path of a scientist was not something that was a given for me, I guess partly because it was never really made clear how you become one? Sure, you go to college and get multiple degrees and all that, but I think I’m still figuring out what it actually means to “be a scientist”.

Were there any particular things from your childhood that drew you to study the ocean?
Nothing very particular. Though I did have a freshwater aquarium as a kid and maybe that’s how I got into studying water. To keep the fish healthy, you need to learn about nitrogen cycles and oxygen et cetera, and perhaps that is what led me to go into biology and later oceanography.

What skills or abilities do you think are useful when going to graduate school for oceanography?
I think self-esteem is really important. We’re trained to question everything and not be sure of anything, and that can sometimes leak into your personal life so having a steady foundation of self-esteem is helpful. Perseverance and resilience are also important. Things take time and sometimes you just have to put your head down and stick it out even if it’s not always super fun. Lastly, I’d say it’s important to be aware that failing is ok, in fact, it’s a useful thing because you learn something.

At sea!

What does a typical workday look like for you?
Well, in essence, it typically looks like this: get to the office, sit at my computer to answer emails and work on whatever data I’m working on, maybe read some papers, and then go home. Nothing super exciting to be honest. Except when you get to go to sea, of course, that’s a bit more thrilling.

What drew you to Scripps?
It was actually quite serendipitous. I was at a conference with Peter Franks and Jen and we started talking, they got Drew on board and then encouraged me to apply for the fellowship and here we are.

NORSE 2023 cruise

Is there a particular scientist/person/thing that inspires you? Can be anyone or anything!
Oh, so many things! In terms of people, I’m really inspired by my ancestors. Black people have this saying back home that “We are the dream of our ancestors”, meaning that our very existence and all the opportunities we have are connected to the hopes, sacrifices, efforts, and dreams of those who came before us. That sense of legacy motivates me a lot and I take a lot of courage and hope from their stories, in particular my grandmothers. I had the opportunity to live with one of my grandmothers during undergrad, and to be around this wealth of knowledge and wisdom from that generation was truly inspiring.

Do you have a fun fact that you'd like to share that not everyone knows about you?

I was once slapped in the face by the first president of Timor-Leste (East Timor). Long story short: Timor-Leste used to be a Portuguese colony, so they still speak some Portuguese. There is a Portuguese consulate in Massachusetts and at some point, when I was on exchange there the university held a reception for the first president of Timor-Leste, Xanana Gusmão, and students were invited. We got to talking and when he learned that I was from Brazil but didn’t attend the opening ceremony for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro because I was in the US, he slapped me in the face, in a kind way but still strong enough to hurt a little, and said that I should have been there!

MOD Student Spotlight: Caique Dias Luko

What is your background and what are you working on at the moment? 
My background is in oceanography, I did both my undergrad and master’s degree in oceanography at the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil, which is where I’m from. I’m currently in my second year at Scripps and right now I’m working with Jen MacKinnon and Amy Waterhouse on projects that involve the Gulf of Mexico and the Tropical Pacific. Both of these regions are the stage to several phenomena that affect climate and marine ecosystems. Hurricane intensification, the formation of Oxygen Minimum Zones and the El Niño Southern Oscillation are some examples of that. Right now, I am studying how submesoscale motions and internal waves can modulate vertical exchanges of heat and oxygen in these regions. Ultimately I want to understand their contribution to the dynamics of these different phenomena.

Caique and his USP undergrad friends on their last fieldwork trip in Ubatuba, SP - Brazil.

What keeps you excited and interested in working in the field of oceanography?
For me, I think it’s mostly curiosity. Whenever I see something interesting, say a figure or photo of a phenomenon in the ocean, I just really want to understand what it can tell us and know more about it. It is even more exciting when that can relate to our daily experiences. Some of my most remarkable memories come from the classroom when I learned the craziest things about the ocean. How would we ever know that the ocean could glow blue at night because of phytoplankton? Or how would we ever know that there are rainier and drier years because of this thing called El Niño? There is so much to learn about our oceans and that keeps me excited!

Caique and his parents at his Bachelor’s degree graduation in 2020.

When you were a kid, did you expect to be a scientist or engineer? 
I didn’t expect to be a scientist, I actually wanted to build houses like my grandfather did. At some point I also wanted to be an Olympic swimmer. But I guess I went into science because I inherited a huge love for nature from my parents. My mom always encouraged me to study and her wish for me has always been to earn a bachelor’s degree from the University of São Paulo. She has really done everything she can to support me and allow me to have that opportunity and I think that’s part of the reason I’m now working towards a PhD.

Were there any particular things from your childhood that drew you to study the ocean?
I grew up in São Paulo, about 1-3 hours away from the ocean. But my mom and I would go as often as we could and have so much fun every time. Her love for the ocean was definitely contagious!

What skills or abilities do you think are useful when going into oceanography or academia in general? 
I think that having an interdisciplinary background can be to your advantage. Oceanography really spans many different fields, and you might have to connect many different dots from different areas of knowledge at times, so it helps to know a little bit about other things outside your niche.

Caique scuba diving in a coral reef in Fernando de Noronha, Brazil.

What does a typical workday look like for you? 
Typically I wake up, get to the office, do some emails, work on some data analysis and make some plots. At some point I’ll take a break and look at the ocean, and maybe there’s a meeting or seminar in the afternoon. After work, I might go play some beach soccer or go hang out with some friends. Of course, that looks different if you’re doing fieldwork at sea, but on average that is about it.

What drew you to Scripps? 
I think I’ve always known about Scripps as one of the best places in the world to do oceanography, already in my undergrad I read papers coming out of here. It just seemed like a fun place with lots of opportunities to do fieldwork and interesting research. My favorite part is probably that you’re surrounded by so many people doing cool things in the field of oceanography and I learn so much just from being around everyone. The fact that the campus is right on the beach and that the weather is nice in Southern California doesn’t hurt either…

Caique and his mom in Fernando de Noronha, in August 2022, right before he came to Scripps.

Is there a particular scientist/person/something that inspires you?
Firstly I would have to say my mom. She is such a hardworking person, but also super kind and generous and that inspires me a lot. Then I would also have to say my advisors Jen MacKinnon and Amy Waterhouse. They are great advisors and do amazing science, all while managing many different students and projects, and at the same time raising families. They’re just great people overall and that is inspiring to me.

Do you have a fun fact that you'd like to share that not everyone knows about you? 
My name “Caique” means “the bird that glides above the sea”. My mom didn’t know that when she gave me my name, but it’s quite a funny coincidence that I then became an oceanographer spending a lot of time on ships gliding around on the ocean. I always think of the frigatebird that soars above the ocean skimming the surface for fish, they can’t dive or swim, but they’re roaming just above the sea surface trying to find their livelihood, it’s not entirely unlike me when I’m on a research cruise!

CTD profiling in the Gulf of Mexico during the SUNRISE 2022 cruise. Photo: Kerstin Bergentz.

Written by Kerstin Bergentz

MOD Student Spotlight: Ankitha Kannad

What is your background and what are you working on at the moment? 
I did my undergrad in physics and geology here in the US at Bryn Mawr College, a small women’s college just outside of Philadelphia. I started out doing physics but then had a bit of an existential crisis halfway through. See, I have always enjoyed environmental work. I even spent a year in between high school and college working for an environmental group and volunteering at a rainforest research institute in India during that time too. During college, I realized that I enjoyed environmental work not just as a side thing but potentially as a career as well. Hence I decided to do geology. I got into oceanography through a summer internship and really enjoyed applying physics to study the ocean. After graduating I ended up spending about 2 years working for a paleo-oceanographer doing data analysis and I got to explore the interactions between the ocean and long-term climate. That is also what I do now in graduate school and my 3rd year at Scripps, although in more real time. I study how small-scale surface processes in the ocean influence rainfall, specifically the monsoon in South Asia together with my advisors, professors Janet Sprintall and Jen Mackinnon.

What keeps you excited and interested in working in the field of oceanography?
I like that I can go to sea and actually observe all of this data I'm looking at and I’m excited to get more fieldwork experience. I also really enjoy doing physics and the way it teaches you to approach problems and think about the world. You learn how to simplify a problem to its essential parts and think more deeply about the forces influencing our everyday lives. I like getting to practice that kind of thinking when studying such a complex system as the ocean.

When you were a kid, did you expect to be a scientist or engineer? 
I don't think I specifically thought about being a scientist when I was a kid. 5-year-old me would not have answered “scientist” to “what do you want to be when you grow up?”. My obsession when I was a kid was ancient civilizations and history. I was also exposed to a lot of popular science shows by my parents who are both engineers but probably wasn’t until high school that I really started to think about going into science as a career. I had a great physics teacher who really encouraged us to think and explore and not just learn things to get a good grade on a test. That was an important experience for me.

Were there any particular things from your childhood that drew you to study the ocean?
I grew up in in Singapore and my family is originally from a coastal town in India so I kind of grew up around the ocean. It had a presence in my life even though I didn’t necessarily spend a lot of time at the beach as a kid. It also felt very natural to move into oceanography from geology. It feels like the intersection of so much that I love and care about - physics, climate change and adaptation especially in many parts of Asia which is where I think I’ll want to work in the future.

What skills or abilities do you think are useful when going into oceanography? 
One thing is to be able to be comfortable with uncertainty. I think that the way science is often taught in school is very deterministic. You have a problem, you solve it using a method you’ve learned, you get an answer, and then you’re done. Actual research is much less certain, and you can’t be afraid of not knowing the right answer, because often you don’t. Making mistakes is part of the process and there is a lot more uncertainty in general. That is hard to learn in a class though, you just have to get into it and practice.

I also think it is important to be able to put things in perspective. In oceanography there are so many different connections to everything from climate science to math and social sciences, and there is a lot you can learn from collaborating with other people. To be a little bit curious about the rest of those fields and to be willing to learn from other people is useful. Being able to put your work in a greater context and think about how you fit into the bigger picture, I think is what makes a good scientist and it can help you stay motivated when it sometimes feels like you’re not making much progress.

 What does a typical workday look like for you? 
I typically spend most of the day working in front of the computer doing data analysis. I'm also just starting out, so I've been spending a lot of time reading papers trying to build a foundational understanding of the things I'm studying and getting started processing and thinking about data from our first cruise in the Arabian Sea.

What drew you to Scripps? 
I think a large part of it for me was being able to get to do observational work, that’s what Scripps is known for. I also applied to graduate school during the Zoom/Covid era (fall of 2020 to start in the fall of 2021) so I didn’t really have a feel for the campus and community. The latter is very important for me after coming from a small college where I really enjoyed that. I’m happy that Scripps although it is big also has that kind of small community vibe at times. Plus, I had spent 6 years on the East Coast and wanted a change. I needed a break from the winter…

Is there a particular scientist/person/something that inspires you?
I've definitely been lucky to have a lot of people who have influenced my path and have been great mentors along the way, but I think the one the person that has been with me the longest is my grandmother. She is not a scientist or does anything related to science, but she just has this wealth of knowledge and understanding of the world. A lot of my favorite memories with her are going out to parks and she would point out all the plants and animals she knows. She also jokes that the kitchen is her laboratory. She is just very curious about everything, a scientist in disguise as a grandmother! Seeing her approach to the world around her reminds me that there's so many people who understand nature in different ways; science is just one approach. I also think that a lot of how much I value community has come from her. My grandparents’ house is always open and people are always coming and going. That sense of community, being welcomed and belonging is something I find invaluable, and it is something I want to work to create around me too.

Do you have a fun fact that you'd like to share that not everyone knows about you? 
I have accumulated a lot of musical hobbies, none of which I’m very good at. Growing up I did classical Indian vocal music and piano, and then I played sitar in high school. I recently started doing taiko drumming too. It is quite physical and requires a lot of precision and alignment, but it is very fun!

 Written by: Kerstin Bergentz

MOD Student Spotlight: Andrea Rodriguez-Marin Freudmann

What is your background and what are you studying or working on at the moment? 
My high school experience was fairly generalized, but I wanted to get more hands-on skills for fabrication and design, so I decided to study engineering in undergrad. I got the chance to study tons of math and physics as well as to design and build things (like a recumbent bicycle!). I also did some design work for an underwater mass spectrometer in a deep-sea microbiology lab (the Girguis lab), which was my first introduction to ocean research. I ended up getting my B.S. in mechanical engineering in 2020, though by that point I had started to form an interest in science. I came to SIO in September of that year to start the Physical Oceanography program, which appealed to me because the first year of courses sounded like a good entry into the world of scientific research.

I am now working with a wonderful group of people at SIO including Amy Waterhouse, Mark Merrifield, Peter Franks, Jen Mackinnon, and many others at other institutions. I am using data from the Inner Shelf Dynamics Experiment to piece together how internal waves affect the momentum budget of the West Coast inner shelf. There have been a lot of studies on this region on the East Coast, but the other side of the continent is less well understood and has rather different dynamics. It sounds somewhat distant from real-life applications, but understanding the role that different forces play in the area can be important for predicting ocean flows and circulation, which in turn can help understand coastal problems, for example, red tides and where they will end up.

 What keeps you excited and interested in working in the field of oceanography?
The first thing that comes to mind is the sea-going part of oceanography. I love spending time on ships and the camaraderie that comes with working with so many dedicated people. It’s like summer camp for scientists, only with 12-hour shifts! It’s also a great opportunity to pick people’s brains for problems they may have seen in the past or have a different perspective on, in a way that’s much less structured than a meeting or a conference. Plus getting to collect the data to work on is very exciting.

Another element that’s really exciting is the sheer number of open questions. There are so many little contradictions and unknowns that need to be answered and that can be a really rewarding experience. For example, I am using model data, objectively mapped data, and observational data in combination since each one provides a piece of an answer to my question about internal waves and cross-shelf dynamics. Sometimes things seem fully understood (like in the model) or utterly baffling (like in the data) but turn out to be very different from our initial assumptions, and it’s the oceanographer’s job to tease out what’s actually happening.

 When you were a kid, did you expect to be a scientist or engineer?
I wanted to be all kinds of things as a kid, from a singer to a doctor, but I was also always interested in water. I grew up on an island taking a boat to school, I canoed through the Canadian wilderness, I was a swim instructor and lifeguard, etc. Once I got to my teenage years though I realized that I wanted to answer questions and solve problems for practical applications. I decided on mechanical engineering in my first year of undergrad because I enjoyed making things with my hands, and I liked being able to see with my own eyes how things work. My two interests didn’t click until my third year of university when I discovered the field of oceanography, and I realized that there was a job that involved answering questions, using cool tools, and spending time on the water.

 Were there any particular things from your childhood that drew you to study the ocean?
Like I mentioned, I grew up on an island, the Toronto Islands on Lake Ontario. One thing that always interested me as a child was how different the ocean was from the lake, how the waves were different, the salt felt different, the existence of tides, etc. It was such a different experience between the ocean on holiday and the lake the rest of the time.

The lake would behave differently every year too in ways that would affect us on the ground: there would be flooding one year and not another, the lake would freeze solid or not, etc. Thanks to this variability a lot of discussion would be about how the winter conditions far away from us would affect water levels in the summer, or how strong the winds were once it started to get cold enough to freeze. I think that was when I started to be interested in the “why” of the bodies of water in my life.  

What skills or abilities do you think are useful when going into oceanography?
I think there are a lot of skills that can get you through, since everyone has a pretty different experience. One that is immediately obvious is persistence, since a lot of the time things just don’t work and you have to believe in yourself enough to keep trying. Along with that, and maybe a little contradictorily, is knowing when to stop or pivot, which is maybe the skill of self-awareness? At the end of the day I think someone researching oceanography needs the confidence to keep going in a direction they believe in, as well as the confidence to decide they want to try something else. Then if someone has good time management, math skills, etc. that’s going to be helpful, but that’s generally true for any STEM subject. In my opinion oceanography is uniquely frustrating (and rewarding) because there is so much to study and so little known, so there are a lot of potential paths to go down.

What does a typical workday look like for you?
I usually start by deciding whether I want to work from home or from the office that day, though typically that’s determined by external factors (like meetings, seminars, classes, etc.). In the morning I typically try to start by catching up on emails and then (hopefully) finishing whatever data analysis I started the evening prior, now with fresh eyes. After lunch I do my second email check of the day, and then either go back to data analysis or do something logistical if I am getting too deeply frustrated. If I am really excited about a problem I’ll keep going into the evening, otherwise I’ll sleep on it. Of course this routine is typically disrupted by things happening around the office, grad school is a hectic time whether you like it or not.

What drew you to Scripps?
I had honestly never even heard of SIO until close to the end of undergrad, and then I applied because it sounded like they were open to those who were still figuring out where they wanted to focus their research. I really wanted that first year of coursework in physical oceanography since my background was in engineering, a degree which is useful but not sufficient for ocean science. I also liked that I could pick an advisor at the end of that first year once I had a better understanding of what I liked. I was also seduced by the amount of sea-going that appeared to happen at SIO, which I was very confident I wanted to do.

Is there a particular scientist/person/thing that inspires you?
This one is always hard for me because different people inspire me in different ways. I think someone whom I admire and respect hugely is my partner Alex. He is always interested in learning and never lets challenges at work prevent him from doing projects on the side that interest him. He thinks through problems carefully and always takes his responsibilities seriously. He definitely inspires me to be at his level professionally.

Do you have a fun fact that you'd like to share that not everyone knows about you?
I can speak Spanish with a French accent!