It was once said that the best journeys answer questions that in the beginning you didn't
think to ask.
Susie stands for Science Under Sale Institute for Exploration.
She was founded on the premise of advancing coral reef research, advancing early career
scientists and conducting globally responsible research under sale.
Susie is a program that brings students from all over the world, different backgrounds,
different majors, and we all come together and really become a team focused on the same
goal, the same project.
The foundation of Susie is to do real, publishable, meaningful science and to allow the students
to be part of that process, whether it's aboard the expeditions or some of the students we
select to take those, to take that research all the way to publication.
The fact that they have the potential to experience that in the two to three weeks that they're
on board, I think it just accelerates them in a way that can't be done in a classroom.
To be able to bring young scientists up to speed, up to the way that it's being done
currently, to address questions that are present or current questions and to really add to
the science.
I mean that's how science advances is people building upon what's been done before.
So to take a group of young students, young scientists, and allow them and enable them
to become part of that real process is, it's really cool.
I think it's really important to support organizations like Susie because they literally
change people's lives.
I am a completely, you know, my eyes have been completely open to all the possibilities
in my field, all the possibilities of living aboard and being so close and in touch with
the ocean, and I'm definitely not the only one.
Every single person that has done the program has, you know, they've been changed, it just
touches you.
So right now I'm at Florida Atlantic University Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute and
they are one of the few schools that really have a well-developed marine drug development
and discovery program.
It's a relatively new field, there are a couple drugs that are in clinical trials and a couple
drugs that have been approved, but I think it has potential to be a huge field and there's
a lot of promise in it.
Most drugs we have today come from like the rainforest or penicillin comes from a fungus
and you know coral reefs have so much potential that could be unlocked.
So I think that the field is just going to explode.
So I talk to Robin a lot, he lives aboard a sailboat and he started in grad school.
All of his family thought that he wouldn't last and when I talk to my family about it
they're like, oh you won't last either.
But I bought my first sailboat two weeks ago and I've been living aboard ever since.
I love it.
It's absolutely incredible, such a slow-paced kind of stop-and-small-the-roses, enjoyable
lifestyle and I never would have ever thought of that if it hadn't been for Susie.
There's eight students and three staff and we're all living together as a community for
two to three weeks at sea.
So we have time for formal lectures, we have time for informal candid discussion about
graduate school, about where they're at, about where they see themselves in the future, what
their interests are and how they want to have those supported and a big part of our program
is the mentorship program where when they step off the boat they go into an online digital
mentorship community where there's a lot of peer-to-peer mentorship, where they're
helping each other advance.
We're also helping them advance whether it's grad school or career-based.
But the problems that the world's facing with climate change and hunger and human health,
these young scientists, these are going to be the ones that make the difference.
Seeing them this opportunity to really explore that urge that's inside them I think is critical.
