“In all of my previous diving experience, I’ve been moving constantly to explore a reef or follow a transect, so it was a new experience to stay completely still for fifteen minutes. “

“I’m here for two weeks of ‘fish blitz,’ a collaborative, multi-agency effort to survey and monitor fish and benthic communities in the US Virgin Islands…This is an all-star team of distinguished experts in their fields, and it’s an honor to be here working with them.”

“The last two weeks in Biscayne National Park have been a great introduction to the variety of underwater cultural and natural resource management projects going on in the National Park Service, as well as the realities of the weather dependency of marine field work.”

“I’ll spend the next three to four months scuba diving in some of our National Parks, participating in various projects and getting a first-hand look at how marine science, conservation, and interpretation operate in the Park Service.”

“I have often described this internship as a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but that description actually falls short; this has been a collection of once-in-a-lifetime experiences that have taken place in locations as diverse and incredible as the people who made them possible.”