You know, it's really only a generation or so before mine that women were prohibited from going to see on some vessels, or restricted to their movements while they were out in the ship. One of my mentors tells a story of having to sleep in a tent on the deck of the boat because she wasn't allowed below tex How can you study the ocean if you're not allowed to be there? That was Dr Kelly Benoit Berg talking about the obstacles women have faced in her field marine science.
But like the women who came before her, Kelly hasn't let challenge is stop her. Her research has greatly expanded our knowledge of the oceans and its creatures and how we can save them from the threats of climate change. I'm a land revere and this is senecas one women to hear. We are bringing you one hundred of the world's inspiring and history making women you need to hear. Kelly Benoit Bird is senior scientist at the Monterey Bay
Aquarium Research Institute. Her work focuses primarily on using acoustics to determine how marine creatures, including squid, dolphin, and wales, respond to constantly changing environments. For her innovative research. She's been awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant. She's also given a popular tip talk Listen and learn why Kelly Benoit Bird is one of Seneca's Women to Hear. I'm speaking today to marine biologists and senior scientists at the Monterey Bay
Aquarium Research Institute. Dr Kelly Benoit Bird. Welcome so much, Kelly, thank you so much for having me today. You know, at this moment, when climate change is such a priority, really the existential threat of our lives, why is it so important to study the oceans and their inhabitants as well. You know, we used to think of the ocean as inexhaustible and really too big for us to have a
big impact on. And in fact, the ocean has buffered us from the worst of climate change, taking up of the heat from global warming and absorbing of the fossil fuels we emit each year. But it hasn't done so without a big cost. Changing the ocean circulation with sea i smelting, changing how nutrient is transported, lowering the oceans pH and oxygen levels, and reducing the biodiversity and resilience um as well as decreasing our fish stocks and changing
where those fish are found. And the ocean really provides us critical life support. It produces fifty percent of the oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere and provides nearly a fifth of human protein intake. While climate change is one of just many threats the ocean is facing, like over fishing, species, invasions, pollution, and plastics. These are all compounded by climate change, so
there's really a kind of triple threat happening. We urgently need information to effectively steward the ocean for the health of the planet and for all of humankind. Well, that response is so on target, I think, to wake us all up as to what an incredibly important role the oceans play, but also how much worse we can see climate change by what's happening to the oceans. As you said, now, I know you first got interested in marine biology because of whales. Can you tell us a little bit about
your childhood and what got you into this field. Well, when I was in the fourth grade, I got to take my first airplane trip with my family to visit a marine park, and I was really fascinated by learning about how dolphins and toothed whales used sound to explore their world through a process we call echolocation or bio sonar, and the idea that their world was just so different from ours that they needed a different way of seeing than using their eyes. UM just released this huge amount
of curiosity. So I came home and read every book and our small city library on the ocean, on sound, on marine mammals, and was just left with a huge array of questions. But you know, I really didn't understand how I could turn that into a career. Didn't really know that science wasn't just a collection of information in a book, but really something you do write. Science is
not just a static thing, it's really a verb. As the first person in my family to go to college, I didn't have a lot of role models for how to turn that sort of intellectual curiosity into something I could get paid to do. But I was really fortunate as a college student to have research experiences that showed me a variety of ways that I could get paid for being curious and contributing to the development of new ideas.
Was your family surprised by your career choice? Oh yeah, my family always They always thought I would have a career connected to art um. In fact, as a college student. I helped pay my way through school by working as a scientific illustrator. So my parents didn't really understand why I wanted to continue going to school as a graduate
student instead of taking a job offer with a book publisher. UM. It was really an uncharted path for them as well, and I'm certain they're very, very proud of you today. Your particular area of focus is acoustics and the use of high tech engineering. What have you discovered by using acoustics In my work, I use sound in a way that is very much similar to how dolphins use sound.
We use sonar to map life in the ocean. We send out really short pulses of sound and then we listen for how those sounds interact with the environment to try to understand what animals are doing in the ocean. UM. When sonar like this first came into wider applications and the nineteen forties, as the result of World War Two, these military so in our operators discovered what they previously thought was the sea floor UM becoming shallower at night. And of course we know that the sea floor doesn't
move that quickly. That is not a geologic time scale UM, and so the biologists started to be able to describe how this was a layer of life that moved upwards at night and down during the day. And this scattering layer, made up of fish and crustaceans like shrimp and squid and other animals, are really found throughout all of the world's oceans and are the largest untapped biomass of animals that we have on our planet, with ten billion tons
of resources. We're now learning that these animals play a really important role in the carbon pump that helps to regulate our climate, and are really critical food resources for many of the fish that end up on your dinner plate, like tuna and salmon, but also seabirds like penguins and seals, whales and dolphins. So what's interesting is that despite how important these animals are, the mesopelagic or midwater zone where they live is one of the least investigated components of
the Earth's system. So we're looking now at why these animals migrate up and down, how far they do that when they decide not to, and are really understanding just how variable this is. Um You might not think moving up and down a thousand feet every day is a really big deal, but if you think about this on a human scale. These migrations are the equivalent of you running a ten k twice a day, once for your
dinner and once before you go to bed. And so this is a really important sort of bio logical conveyor belt in the world's ocean. It's just fascinating, so interesting, and you're continuing to work on this particular area. Absolutely, we're really developing new tools that can give us a new perspective to to get a fish eye view of life beneath the surface of the waves, to understand what role biology plays and the oceans effect on climate, and
are starting to grasp just how important these animals are. Well. That concept of a fish eye view, it's really interesting to think about. Were there any particular hurdles that you confronted because you're a woman in this field. You know, it's really only a generation or so before mine that women were prohibited from going to see on some vessels or restricted to their movements while they were out in the ship. One of my mentors tells the story of having to sleep in a tent on the deck of
the boat because she wasn't allowed below decks. How can you study the ocean if you're not allowed to be there. Well. Of course these rules around going to see have changed, the attitudes haven't always caught up, and that can be really challenging when you're out for weeks and a small space, under pressure and really need to work as a team for success as well as safety. Do we need to
have more women in marine biology? Oh? Absolutely. You know, I've been really fortunate throughout my career to have had women a stepper a few ahead of me on the path who generously reached down the ladder to help lift me up and provide a model of how to do hard things in a way that felt authentic to me. Um. You know, I have also had had senior mentors who believed in me and encouraged me when I need to push champion meeting others, and really everyone needs to have that.
We need everyone to help solve the great challenges our planet faces. In biology, bio diversity is used as a metric of the health and ecosystem. You know this idea that the presence of each species really affects the outcome. For example, when we reintroduce sea honors and to Monterey Bay, their presence made the entire monterate Bay ecosystem more resilient and healthier. And I think that concept of diversity is
true in the health of science as well. We need all of these different and diverse voices because our different backgrounds and our lived experiences shape the questions we asked and how we see the answers that we get. So we need those different ways of seeing to identify the most important problems and develop practical solutions. It's well said, and really it does represent the need for diversity across all fields, and your description appropriate to marine biology. It's
really something I think our listeners can truly understand. Seedecas one hundred women to hear. Will be back after the short break. M But were some of the people who influenced you specifically? You mentioned having mentors and how important they were. Well, I don't want to leave everyone else, so I just want to give a couple of examples of you know, those creative, powerful women in ocean sciences that have helped to lift me along the way. Jane
Ubchenko is one example. She's a remarkable ecologist and educator who has served in many national roles, including the US Science enjoy for the Ocean. She's been a model for me and how she's balanced her career and her family along with her research partner husband, and at a time when I was personally struggling with how I was viewed by others and how that was impacting my career, she gave me really practical guidance and encouragement that helped me
find a pathway around that obstacle. Another example is Julie Packard, who's one of the founders of the Monterey Bay Aquarium and her commitment to engaging diverse stakeholders and ocean conservation and to creating change by helping to connect people to the ocean to help them understand just how important it is to all of us, no matter where they live, really challenges me to sharpen the so what messages of my research to help people understand just how important it
is for life on our planet that we understand the largest living space on it, the ocean. I know you love one of MacArthur Genius Grant in two thousand and ten, and that is one of the most extraordinary achievements in terms of awards that one can get because it's you know, and perhaps our listeners don't that it's not something you apply for your work comes to the fore and you're selected over a period of time for the extraordinary work one does, hence a genius And has that changed your
life in any way? Yeah? Absolutely. You know, one of the greatest things about the MacArthur Fellowship is that it's no strengths attached. It really let me take on some risks in my work that wouldn't have been possible through more traditional means of funding, and that really helped me
to find my voice in science. When that fellowship ended after five years, it kind of gave me the freedom to take on some new challenges and I moved from an academic setting at a university where I was a professor to and Bury, where that risk is really an explicit part of the job description, and that has allowed me to take a different tax with my work, and where I've been focusing on trying to see the ocean from the perspective of its inhabitants and really pushing against
the history of oceanography which is largely be bottom up thinking about the physics and the chemistry and treating the biology as passive and trying to see what we can actually learn from the animals. Think they have a lot to teach us if we can figure out how to listen. So it really did open up a whole new area
for you to to focus on. Very exciting. If you could tell our listeners just one thing, but you can add more than one if you'd like, But just one thing that we could all do to protect the oceans. What would that be? Because this is such a challenge climate change and specifically focused on oceans. As this conversation is, perhaps you could help us think about the role we
could play well. I would say to the young women who have a passion for asking questions, we need your perspective and your voice and science and engineering and science communication, ocean policy and education. UM. For those of you who are a little further along in your career path, I want to challenge you to take on the opportunity to lift others. You know, I remember my second grade you're saying to me when you go to college, and that gave me a new view of what was possible for
me and really opened up my opportunities. But you really don't have to be a teacher to mentor or pave a path for others. So think about how to best use your talents and resources to invest in an individual to help make a better future for all of us. And certainly the STEM field is all important to encourage young people to pursue and particularly women and others who
may not be as engaged as they could be. You know, we often see ads of one kind or another that show how much debris the ocean is being attacked with. If you will, you mentioned plastics at one point. Are there things that that we can all do to ensure a better environment around our oceans? Well, we can, you know, each take individual action, certainly, but I think the biggest
things have to be done at a larger scale. So the most important thing that we can all do is use our voices, whether that's through voting, whether that's through expressing to our elected representatives that the ocean is important to us. By sharing our passion with others, that's how we can collectively make a big impact. Well, these are certainly challenging times, and here in every response you make in this conversation, just a passion for what you do
and a commitment to doing it. So let me ask, finally, what gives you hope? Well, I want to start by acknowledging that sometimes it is hard to feel hopeful climate change, plastic pollution, and all these other threats we've talked about today facing our oceans are so called wicked problems, but throughout human history, science and innovation have really been used
to help us provide solutions to enormous challenges. Of course, it's sept a people to apply the information and tools that science has to offer, but it's really hopeful that the ocean is being recognized by governmental organizations for the
key role at place in all of our health. For example, we're currently in the midst of the u N Decade for the Oceans, and I'm really encouraged by the growing recognition that I've witnessed around welcoming new voices to the discussion, building new capacity and communities that haven't been engaged in these issues in the past, because we do need everyone to work together on these problems, bringing together science and technology with social and policy change, and all of that
really starts with recognizing that we're all connected to the ocean, and it's a call to action for all of us for sure. Thank you so much, Kelly Benoit Bird for being with us today. Thank you for all you do. Thank you, ambassador. It's been my pleasure. What a refreshing change of perspective to see the world from the depths of the ocean thanks to Kelly thennoy Bird. There are
three things I took from that conversation. First, Kelly's work shows how interrelated and interdependent we all are, from the tiniest creatures in the ocean to the biggest mammals on Earth. Every form of life has a role to play, and what happens to them can affect our food supply and our environment. Second, Kelly reminds us why it's so important to have a women's point of view and science to bring in different ways of seeing problems and solutions, and
why mentors are so crucial for women getting into the field. Finally, Kelly cautions us not to give into pessimism despite all the dire reports of out climate change. The most important thing we can do, she says, is to use our voices through voting and sharing our opinions with elected officials and with everyone we know. Tune in next week to hear about our next featured woman and discover why she's
one of Seneca's Women to Hear. Seneca's one hundred Women to Hear is a collaboration between the Seneca Women Podcast Network and I Heart Radio, with support from founding partner PNG. Have a great day.