Totally Immersed: Young Alums Plunge Into the Depths of Marine Science & Advocacy

Abbey Dias didn’t come to Whitman College expecting to study marine biology, but the abundant opportunities she found at Whitman helped her launch a career as a scientific diver and diving instructor.

“If you have an interest, the professors at Whitman are going to support you in pursuing that interest, no matter what it takes,” says Dias, who earned her Biology degree in 2020.

Dias and other young alumni have taken their passion for the watery world and coastal environments from the Walla Walla Valley to Alaska’s Sitka Sound, the icy waters of Antarctica, the vibrant marine environments of the Bahamas and beyond—pursuing careers in research, policy, education and an array of marine-related fields. 

Here’s a glimpse at how these adventurous alums are exploring the mysteries of the deep.

Sharing Underwater Wonder

Every time Abbey Dias dips her head below the water’s surface at the beginning of a scuba dive, she’s in awe.

Whether she’s diving off the coast of her home state of Washington or in Antarctica, where she studies some of the world’s strangest bacteria, Dias has the same thought: “Wow, I’m so lucky to be doing this.”

Dias discovered her love of diving after her first year at Whitman, when a friend talked her into earning her recreational scuba certification over the summer.

That love became a career path after she attended a 2018 talk at Whitman by Mackenzie Gerringer ’12, who was then a postdoctoral researcher at Friday Harbor Laboratories in the Salish Sea. Dias was inspired by Gerringer’s presentation about building remotely operated underwater vehicles to study fish that live in the ocean’s deepest trenches.

Afterward, she asked Gerringer if they could work together. Gerringer had the perfect idea of how to make that happen. She encouraged Dias to apply for a Whitman Internship Grant so she could spend the summer interning at Friday Harbor. 

Dias has stayed connected with Gerringer ever since, as both a mentor and a colleague, and Gerringer will soon be mentoring a new generation of Whitties as an Assistant Professor of Biology, starting in Fall 2026.

The next step was for Dias to train as a scientific diver: a scuba professional with underwater science skills, from managing risk to conducting surveys to taking photos. She earned her American Academy of Underwater Sciences certification through Whitman’s partnership with Walla Walla University in 2020.

Dias went on to earn a master’s degree in Biology from Sonoma State University. Today, she trains students as an Assistant Diving and Boating Safety Officer at the University of California, Davis. Through her research and work, she’s taken three trips to Antarctica’s Lake Fryxell, where she helps study photosynthesizing cyanobacteria that are a “living model of a fossil record.”

The opportunity to explore amazing locations sparks a sense of responsibility in Dias. “We have to consider ourselves as part of the environment,” she says. “Getting to be totally immersed in it is a really great way to study it.”

She documents her dives in photos and film at abbeyunderwater.com and on Instagram, drawing others into the wonders of the deep.

Advocating for Indigenous Voices

As a citizen of the Kenaitze Indian Tribe of Kenai, Alaska, Nick Jacuk ’20 has learned about his community’s connection to fish from his Tribal mentors.

“They’ll say that fish is a part of who we are, a part of our identity, our DNA,” Jacuk says. “That’s what salmon is to us: a strong bond that has connected us throughout our generations.”

But Tribal leaders and knowledge-holders also emphasize that the way fish are managed in Alaska today does not align with their traditional values and sense of stewardship, he says.

As a doctoral student of Fisheries Sciences with a focus in Tribal Fisheries and Political Ecology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) and a Fisheries Policy Manager for Ocean Conservancy, Jacuk is working to be part of the generation that changes that.

Jacuk’s earliest memories are of fishing with his father and grandfather. At Whitman—where he was Co-President of the Indigenous Peoples Education and Culture Club—he began examining the importance of fisheries stewardship through an academic lens. He initially studied the biology side of environmental science, but a professor noticed his interest in politics and policy and encouraged him to pivot to Sociology-Environmental Studies.

His senior thesis on Indigenous knowledge and access to subsistence fisheries was based on his summer 2018 internship at Alaska’s Bristol Bay Native Association.

In 2021, he began his graduate studies at UAF, where he is now a Tamamta Fellow. Fellows bridge Indigenous and Western sciences to explore questions that affect fisheries and marine sciences.

For his research, Jacuk collaborates with Tribal fishers, knowledge-holders and elders to create a model for how Indigenous knowledge and ways of seeing the environment can be applied within current fisheries management frameworks.

At Ocean Conservancy, he advocates and provides support for Tribes and small-boat commercial fishers as they engage with state and federal agencies that manage fisheries across Alaska and the North Pacific.

His work is always guided by principles of Indigenous stewardship.

“The best decisions are always science-driven,” Jacuk says. “But at the same time, science does not exist in a vacuum. There are different aspects of power and policy that are entangled with that. One of the things that brings my Ph.D. together with my work is making sure that our Tribes are represented, that our Tribes are heard.”

Forging a Path in Marine Chemistry

Annie Stefanides ’18 decided to become a Chemistry major while taking her first chemistry class at Whitman. From there, she gathered the elements of her dream career.

She conducted inorganic chemistry research for her undergraduate thesis and found a way to fuse her enthusiasm for the lab with her love of the outdoors. Studying abroad in the School for Field Studies: Turks and Caicos Marine Resource Studies program, she earned her advanced scuba certification and dove every day, tracking fish size and abundance to better understand conservation efforts. The project also involved meeting local anglers and collecting data on their catches.

After graduation, Stefanides honed her skills as an analytical chemist in private industry and as a chemist at a wastewater treatment facility. But she missed fieldwork, so she leapt at the opportunity to become a Research Assistant at the nonprofit Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.

The institute was “the best place to get a deep dive very quickly” into the world of marine chemistry, Stefanides says. She was confident she had found her field.

Now, Stefanides is pursuing her doctorate in Chemical Oceanography at the University of Washington, where her research brings together her love for chemistry, the ocean and the planet. She studies how nutrients in the water column affect the metabolisms of marine microbes, especially how the scarcity of iron can affect certain bacteria in the ocean’s mesopelagic, or “twilight,” zone—a layer of water just out of the reach of sunlight that is teeming with unexplored life. 

These bacteria “may ultimately have a large impact on the fate of carbon in the ocean, either to be stored for long periods of time in the deep or for the re-release of respired carbon back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide,” she explains.

Along with finding her niche, she’s discovered how it fits into the bigger picture.

“We’re still discovering the most basic of things about the ocean, and we also have a ton of changing variables on top of that,” she says. “The field of oceanography requires constant interdisciplinary collaboration to work together and answer all of these big questions.”