MBARI creates and globally scales the visionary technologies required to explore, map, and understand our changing ocean.
MBARI staff are driven by a curiosity to learn more about the ocean and a passion to protect its future.
Meet our staff, leadership, and board of directors.
Get an insider’s look at our team’s work.
Learn how some of our staff navigated to a career at MBARI.
Resources for educators, students, and anyone aspiring to learn how science and technology brings us closer to the ocean.
Integrate MBARI data with lesson plans and workshops.
Discover deep-sea critters, including exclusive footage and info.
Dive into topics about ocean health and its fascinating features.
Explore deep-sea observations with this interactive guide.
Learn about the MLML/MBARI Research Library.
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MBARI is a non-profit oceanographic research center advancing marine science and engineering to understand our changing ocean.
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Meet our leadership and staff.
Discover deep-sea critters of all types.
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Learn about our technologies.
There are hundreds of paths to an ocean STEM career—and some of them may surprise you!
Careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) include diverse roles that go far beyond the traditional scientist in a lab coat. At MBARI, we welcome all people, backgrounds, and experiences. Tapping into a range of ideas allows us to look at challenges in new ways and pursue groundbreaking innovations that are transforming ocean exploration and science.
Meet members of our staff, learn how they navigated the waves on the way to a career at MBARI, and see where they are going from here.
Science is a verb. That is the philosophy that guides Kelly Benoit-Bird, a marine biologist at MBARI using sound to study how animals make a living in the ocean. Kelly’s curiosity began with a fascination for marine mammals and how they sense a world that’s dark and three-dimensional through echolocation. As the first person in her family to go to college, she navigated the unfamiliar path of becoming a professional scientist. Now, she is combining technology, biology, and physics to study the ocean. “It’s interesting to use sound because that’s what most of the animals use, so we’re getting sort of a fish-eye view of what it’s like to be in the ocean.”
You might think that a software engineer sits at a computer all day, but Brian Kieft shows how his job takes him to the lab, the test tank, and out on the water to design ocean technology. It takes time to find your STEM community, and keeping a positive attitude is essential for navigating STEM careers and becoming an ocean innovator. Brian encourages young students to keep pursuing whatever interests make them excited because “maybe that job that you want doesn’t even exist right now.”
Not every ocean career starts with a passion for the sea. Emery Nolasco’s engineering path started with a spark for robotics and the community she found among like-minded tinkerers. “We have so many questions, and if we only have one or two or three people answering those questions or coming up with the ideas, we’re maybe not capturing all of the different perspectives,” says Emery. “You’re the person who’s going to ask those questions and bring those new ideas to the table. And the world needs that, the world needs you and your perspective and what you bring.”