hi this is me (about prose and contact)
Hi, my name is Jenn and I wear many hats. I am:
An Expedition diver and logistics co-ordinator at Inkfish Expeditions.
Director of Dive Project Management at Global Underwater Explorers.
A GUE OW and PD Scuba Instructor.
In my spare time, I am a volunteer biospeleology diver for Phreatic Organisation, and an ambassador for Santi / Blue Abyss. My dream is to become an astronaut one day.
PAST EXPEDITIONS and DIVING:
In 2022, I was immersed in the OceanX Red Sea Decade Expedition, in conjunction with KAUST, National Geographic, and other institutions. I helped to organise and co-ordinate the project, logistics, transportation, permits and outreach. In addition, I spent ~11 weeks on the OceanXplorer directly, as a scientist in the eDNA, deep sea corals and megafauna teams.
This expedition experience led me to gain the 2022-23 GUE NextGen Global Scholarship - in which I embarked on a self-made diving immersion: from behind-the-scenes astronaut training at NASA, to ecosystem surveys in the Middle East. Now, I work for GUE HQ directly in their Execuitive Committee.
Ever keen to bridge the oceans with the stars, I was a past summer school student at ESA (European Space Agency) where I led a project on limpets in space, and am a current ambassador for next-gen testing facility Blue Abyss.
ACADEMICS and SCIENCE:
I have a Zoology degree (with first class honours) from the University of Manchester; not only studying animal behaviour, cardiac ecophysiology and circadian rhythms, but also Mandarin, British Sign Language, and a MOOC in Human Spaceflight from KTH (allowing me to think about bio-mimetic applications for space missions). During this time, I fell in love with ocean conservation (after previous fieldwork in jungle and desert ecosystems). Here during undergrad, I designed a long-term monitoring study of Bush Karoo rats in South Africa for which I became an Honorary Research Fellow.
My BSc thesis examined the longevity of Greenland shark cardiomyocytes, and I started both scuba diving, and volunteering for sea-space agencies. In addition, I have a MSc in Marine Ecosystems Management from the University of St Andrews, with experience in computational ecological modelling, GIS, and biologging. A thesis trip to Antarctica was cancelled due to covid, but the fieldwork was revived in 2022.
Now, my learning continues through developing online learning modules for GUE Open Water, being a biospeleology volunteer diver through Sardinian NGO Phreatic, and participating on expeditions with Inkfish as a marine scientist all over the world.
journal articles
published
Agnani, P., Thomson, J., Schradin, C., and Careau, V. (2020). ‘The fast and the curious II: performance, personality, and metabolism in Karoo bush rats’, Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 74(10), 123-137.
Wolhuter, L., Thomson, J., Schradin, C., Pillay, N. (2021). Life history traits of free-living bush Karoo rats (Otomys unisulcatus) in the semi-arid Succulent Karoo Mammal Research, 67, 73-81.
Phillips, A., Walsh, C., Grayson, K., Penney, C., Husain, F., and Women Doing Science Team (2022). Diversifying Representations of Female Scientists on Social Media: A Case Study From the Women Doing Science Instagram. Social Media+ Society, 8(3), 1-17.
in progress
Morphological and Histological features of the Greenland Shark Coronary Circulation (Yaar, S., Thomson, J., Gurney., A., and Shiels, H.)