Photo credit: Luke Hunter
By Nancy Steinberg
How does a childhood spent in land-locked Tempe, Arizona and West Linn, Oregon inspire a student’s plan for a career in oceanography?
In the case of Athena Abrahamsen, it all started during family vacations to the San Diego area.
“I always loved playing in the waves and learning about the ecosystems beneath them. The more I learned, the more I wanted to help advocate for their protection. As I grew older, I realized the way I could do this was through learning and researching about the oceans and communicating about their importance and our connection to them,” she says.
Her choice to come to Oregon State and major in oceanography in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences made perfect sense. She chose CEOAS for the ocean of opportunities it provides, especially for getting involved in research projects and internships as an undergraduate. And no one embraced these opportunities more than Abrahamsen.
It was the field oceanography course series (OC 295/296), in which all students get to go to sea aboard a research vessel, that made Abrahamsen realize that a career on the waves was for her. She leapt at other hands-on experiences as well, including assisting with marine biogeochemistry research in the lab of CEOAS Professor Miguel Goñi.
After finishing her first year, she landed an internship at the Oregon Coast Aquarium through the Marine and Coastal Opportunities program (then called the Marine Studies Initiative), where she found a passion for marine technology. This new interest led her to a student technician position with the Ocean Observatories Initiative, a federally-funded program that maintains high-tech ocean monitoring instruments in the Northeast Pacific and elsewhere. In that role, she aided in the preparation, deployment and recovery of research moorings off the Oregon and Washington coasts.
“Through that position, I found that I loved participating in sea-going research and working aboard research vessels,” she says. “I learned lots of electrical, mechanical and technical skills through that job, and participated in two multi-day research cruises in the Pacific Ocean.”
She further developed these skills in an internship with the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS) as a marine technician aboard the R/V Pelican, a UNOLS research vessel. She went to sea in the Gulf of Mexico for 40 days, helping monitor the extent of low oxygen and human-caused noise in the gulf.
Abrahamsen will stick around the halls of CEOAS after graduation, working for physical oceanographers Jessica Garwood and Seth Zippel. She will also continue going to sea, with research cruises planned for July and September. “I will be back in the Gulf of Mexico, and then in the Gulf of Alaska,” she says, excitedly.
All of these shipboard opportunities have given Abrahamsen a real jump-start on her intended career as a sea-going marine technician. She has already clocked more than 60 days at sea and has spent time aboard four UNOLS research vessels.
Abrahamsen credits her experiences at CEOAS and Oregon State for her success, particularly the opportunities for hands-on learning and the faculty that cheered her on. “I have appreciated how supportive the professors are,” she says. “They really want you to succeed.”
Kelsey Lane, one of her oceanography instructors, says it was easy to support such an ambitious and enthusiastic student. “Athena’s go-getter attitude was what really led to her success,” Lane says. “She took advantage of every opportunity – it has been such a pleasure to watch her grow.”