Anela Akiona
To start with, could you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your research?
My name is Anela Akiona. I’m a Ph.D. candidate at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. I work in the Sandin lab, where we do coral reef ecology. My research focus is modeling how coral reef interventions might help reefs persist in the face of climate change. I use data from the field, most of which we’ve collected as part of the 100 Island Challenge. That involves diving and collecting photomosaic imagery—large-area imagery that we compile into a 3-D model. We can extract data from those models and also do fish surveys.
I’m curious about how you got into your research field. Were you always interested in marine science?
I’m native Hawaiian and I was born and raised there, so I lived close to the ocean. I grew up going fishing with my dad or going out to the tide pools or sand bars. So the ocean was always there and I always enjoyed it.
It's kind of a cliché story, I guess. You know how people say: “I always wanted to be a marine biologist!” But I did. In sixth grade, we had a lesson on marine debris, and that made me decide I wanted to be a marine biologist. I don’t study marine debris now, but that was the catalyst.
I bounced around for a long time regarding what exactly I wanted to study. But I stuck with it and after doing a couple of internships, I came back to a love of fishing. That made me want to get more involved with local Hawaiian marine fisheries management and that evolved into studying coral reefs specifically.
How did you get into diving?
I was able to learn to dive in high school. I got scuba certified and then went to college, where I did more diving and realized it was something I wanted to continue doing in my career. That’s when fish and diving all came together.
When you went diving in college, was that your first fieldwork experience?
You could say that. After I got scuba certified in high school, I didn’t dive again for three years or so. Then at my college, there were info sessions for different study abroad programs and I went to one where they said: “If you do this program, you’ll get to dive in the Caribbean!” Obviously I wanted to do that.
What was your focus there? Were you already working on coral reefs?
We were at the field school in the Turks and Caicos Islands. The whole program is about coral reef ecology. We did weekly dives and group research. For the last month or so, we had directed research projects. My project was about invasive lionfish.
Did that inspire you to become a researcher in marine science?
It definitely helped. I was a junior majoring in marine science, so I was already pretty far at that point, but the program definitely confirmed that I wanted to research fish and coral reefs.
Also, when I went there, I wasn’t good at diving. I had maybe six dives under my belt and four of them were a long time ago. I really progressed in the program and came out of it with 40 dives. That helped me say, okay, I can keep doing this.
You mentioned you had previous experience with field internships before you started diving. What were those internships like?
I did two internships through the University of Hawai’i at Hilo. One was an NSF REU (National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates). I did a literature review looking at factors that might make birds in Hawai’i more susceptible to negative effects of climate change. When the climate gets warmer, for instance, the habitat range of mosquitoes expands and birds are more susceptible to disease. So that one wasn’t marine.
In my second year, I was placed with the Hawai’i Division of Aquatic Resources (DAR) and that internship was fishy! I was creating length-weight relationships to be able to calculate fish biomass. We would go to the shore and catch fish, measure them, and weigh them. I learned how to use a throw net. It was great.
Now you’re a graduate student doing Ph.D. research. What does a typical day of research look like for you?
When I’m in San Diego, a typical day is going to my office and sitting at my computer for most of the day. Right now, I’m trying to get my first chapter published, so I’m doing a lot of writing.
I’m also preparing for my next field deployment. We have a trip to Curaçao coming up and I’m going there at the end of the month. Right now, I’m making flashcards so everyone can study the fish and recognize them on dives.
And when you go into the field, what’s a typical day like?
A typical day is breakfast at 6:30 AM, tanks at 7, boats off at 7:15. Then we do three dives. Usually, we’re back by 3 or 4 PM. We clean our gear, clean the cameras, and then do other stuff depending on our jobs. There are two jobs on these trips: Dealing with the cameras and doing fish surveys. I’ve mostly been doing fish surveys recently. That means I spend the rest of the day inputting data, trying to identify species we didn’t recognize from our pictures. That can take a while. When that’s done, we have our group meeting, prepare our gear for the next day, and go to bed at 8:30 or so.
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced as a field scientist?
I feel like the biggest challenge I’ve faced on the last few trips is not being prepared for cultural differences. We work with a lot of local scientists and sometimes it’s such a rush to get there that it feels like we don’t have enough time to prepare. To be honest, I don’t know how you would prepare for that—navigating a situation where you come from different places and you’re working towards a common goal, but you might go about that slightly differently. That’s been an unexpected challenge of fieldwork.
To ask the opposite question, what’s your favorite thing about fieldwork and the research you do?
On the flip side of what I just said, I love working with local collaborators! In Hawai’i, we see a lot of parachute science, so collaborating with local people is super important to me. That’s something I appreciate about my group’s research: There’s such an emphasis on making sure we’re bringing local stakeholders with us into the field. We’re not showing up and saying: “We’re international scientists, let us tell you what to do.” They’re valuable members of our team.
It definitely enhances my experiences of places I go to. We’ll be on a boat and one of the locals will say: “I’m from over there” or “Here’s a crazy story about this place.” We learn so much more about each place than we would if we weren’t doing that.
Building on that, what do you think people in STEM could do to make science more inclusive, respectful, and collaborative, especially for marginalized communities?
It’s super important to be willing to put in the groundwork ahead of time. We work a lot in Pacific Island communities and for us it’s important to build those relationships before we do the research. It can be hard because people have funding timelines and deadlines, but I think scientists need to anticipate putting in in a lot of work ahead of time to build relationships with those communities.
I also think scientists should listen more to what communities need instead of serving their own needs and academic goals. I don’t think that happens enough. For me, my goal is to move home and do coral reef science there because I don’t think there are enough Hawaiians doing research in our own home for our own resources. I think there’s a need for that.
How do you think being a woman has affected your experiences in the field?
I’ve never been the only woman on a trip, but usually it’s just me and one other woman, and it can feel like a little bit of a boys’ club. But I’ve been lucky in that my coworkers are all very aware of that. Even when I’ve had instances of—not overt sexism, but situations where I think: “Are you asking me to do this just because I’m a woman?” My guy groupmates will say: “I’ll do it!” They look out for me and I appreciate that.
Overall, I’ve had really positive experiences in the field. I always try to pull my weight as best I can. Maybe I can’t lift the heaviest objects, but I believe working hard and trying your best goes a long way.
That’s a good principle. Everyone has something to contribute, even if they can’t—like you said—lift the heaviest objects.
Right. Another thing I try to do is anticipate what other people need. I try to think about us as a team: I’m not ready to go on a dive until everyone is ready, so I help where I can if I have time. That makes me a useful team member and keeps getting me sent in the field.
What advice would you give to others, especially girls and women, who are interested in getting into field research?
I don’t know if you get this in your field, but I always hear: “Oh, I wanted to be a marine biologist when I was a kid!” It makes me sad, because I feel like people don’t think they can be marine biologists. They don’t think it’s accessible or doable. I wish more people knew that marine biology can be a career.
I also wish more people knew that you don’t have to pay to go to grad school. There are scholarships and opportunities for going to graduate school, and as a Ph.D. student, you typically don’t pay. You get paid to do it. I didn’t know that for a while—almost until I graduated from college. That’s not exactly advice, but it’s something I wish more people knew.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. Images used with permission of Anela Akiona.
