Monday, 10 August 2009
“I think the worst thing about what we are seeing is that you have to perform capturing methods, such as trawling, with a super fine net in the planktonic size range to really see the danger lurking beneath. Our trawl net today came up with at least an order of magnitude more debris than plankton; a majority of this debris was post-production polymers. It’s hard, as a scientist, to look at samples like this and not immediately start to extrapolate what the implications of this tremendous amount of debris mean to the environment as well as ourselves. Most of our samples will not be identified until we get back to shore, but the visual interpretations are astounding. It is vitally important that we make a huge change in our habits. It is imperative that we start managing all of our resources wisely. What we are seeing out here are some larger post-production polymer pieces, but the majority is fine to ultrafine postproduction polymer pieces.”At a young age, Andrea Neal, Ph.D. was always experimenting in the scientific world, and she knew she wanted to be some kind of “-oligist.” While on the family ranch in Wyoming, she often used her grandmother’s travel beauty case as a portable laboratory. (She would also like to give a great shout-out and hug to her family doing the annual ranch maintenance while she is on this expedition.) In the ninth grade, her science teacher Mr. Shotland gave her a book called “Shaman’s Apprentice” by Mark J. Plotkin, which created an insatiable appetite for her to become an ethnobotanist. The rest of her high school studies and collegiate interests were then directed in this field.
Dr. Neal chose Purdue University, which has one of the top botany programs in the world, and she worked in a medicinal and aromatics lab with Professor James Simon for four years. There she discovered that very little was understood about how plants produce specific types and quantities of oil. Dr. Neal felt a strong need to understand plant oil synthesis in an attempt to efficiently use them for bio-fuel production. She continued her education in plant biology at the Swedish Life Sciences University (SLU) in Uppsala, Sweden, with Professor Hans Ronne, Professor Sten Stymne, and Professor Ulf Stahl, studying lipid biosynthesis in eukaryotic organisms. After five years of intensive studies, Dr. Neal became interested in the unusual fatty acid production in coastal sea sponges and their important role in oceanic health.
After getting her doctorate degree, Dr. Neal began a post-doctoral appointment at the University of California, Santa Barbara’s Bren School of Environmental Science and Management. There she worked with Professor Patricia Holden on nano-particle toxicity on bacterial organisms. Afterwards, she revisited the importance of coastal sea sponges and the environmental implications that waste has on fragile coastal marine habitats. During these studies, she realized that scientists tend not to be taught effective communication with government agencies and the general public. She felt that in order for proper legislation to be passed and action taken on environmental issues, there must be a quorum of communication between science, government, industry, and the general public. To learn to be a more effective communicator, she participated in a post-doctoral enrichment study at Jean-Michel Cousteau’s Ocean Futures Society focusing on outreach. There, she put together the Santa Barbara component of the “Day Without a Bag” campaign. The campaign passed out 6,000 reusable bags at 18 educational outreach sites, focusing on the importance of reusable bags and recycling. Dr. Neal also worked with school groups such as Don’s Net Café from Santa Barbara High School and Jean-Michel Cousteau’s “Ambassadors of the Environment Program,” empowering kids to become pro-active environmental advocates.
This past spring, Dr. Neal worked on an environmental toxins campaign, bringing to light the detrimental impacts of brominated and chlorinated compounds used as flame retardants in household products on environmental and human health. It was during this time that Dr. Neal met Doug Wooding and Mary Crowley, and was invited to lead the science team on the S/V Kaisei. Using her broad scientific background and research experience, she put together a notable team. The intention of this international scientific group is to analyze and quantify the environmental impact of marine debris at representative sites the North Pacific Gyre. The Kaisei science team’s hope is to develop standardized methodologies that can be used for future marine debris studies. Dr. Neal’s hope is that, as a global scientific community, we will work together proactively to find innovative solutions to what could be the largest environmental disaster of our human history. Dr. Neal wants everyone to know how thrilled she is to work with such an amazing group of people that are on the S/V Kaisei. She is also very proud of her team who are working around the clock on this incredibly important mission to improve our understanding of marine debris in the North Pacific Gyre.
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