From Plankton to Policy • Dr. Gabrielle Corradino

(Knauss Fellow, NOAA and NatGeo Explorer || DC USA)

“Take a breath. Take another breath. You’re breathing oxygen that plankton produce — over 50% of the world’s oxygen comes from plankton. For my PhD, I characterized a new genus of plankton, a little-known type called a nanoflagellate, barely larger than a bacteria cell. They’re the most abundant predator in our oceans that no one’s ever heard of. I have an Instagram for my research (@marchoftheplankton) and love talking to people who love plankton — we’re a small community. But I can’t present my paper about nanoflagellates to my family and have a two-way discussion about it. I have to take a step back and recognize I’m sitting with four people at the dinner table who don’t have the same background I do. If you want to share your story with the public as a scientist, if you want to engage and have discourse, you need to make it digestible for everyone. The — ’Why do I care? Why are my tax dollars funding this?’ — that needs to be at the forefront. Platforms like the Discovery Channel and National Geographic have an important role in talking to the public about what we do as scientists.

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I’ve had a grant and currently have a fellowship with National Geographic. I was on a cruise in the Gulf of Mexico to do plankton sampling, studying organisms under the microscope and using DNA signatures. But data collection is just one aspect. Being a NatGeo Explorer, you’re someone willing to think about a project through a different lens, whether with storytelling or some kind of collaboration with journalists and photographers. Now I’m in the Knauss program with NOAA in the Office of Education. I work in marine policy, reviewing grants and sitting on panels. It’s the other side of research — I’m working to understand the full process of science.

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I think policy work has an important role in my life, but I’ve wanted to be an educator since I realized the impact educators had on me. Whether I go to a nonprofit, or become a professor, I want to do it for the next generation. I want to hook them, to reel them in — the same way my professors did for me.”