Hi!
I’m Samuel Thomsen, but you can call me Sam.
I’m absolutely thrilled to be this year’s OWUSS European Scholar.
First and foremost, I’d like to extend a big thank you to everyone who has supported me in achieving this and is facilitating this year. This includes my generous sponsors, wonderful coordinators, and, of course, last but certainly not least, all the generous hosts.
This year, I hope to find ‘Sam’s Solutions for Society and The Sea’! What does that mean? I don’t know yet either, but I’m sure it will be a lot of fun finding out, and I invite you to follow along with me on the journey! As we all well know, the oceans are facing as many challenges as ever, from plastics to pollution, with the very foundations of some of the most diverse ecosystems under threat, exemplified by another mass coral bleaching event starting. So, there very well may be a few struggles along the way.
You might be wondering a little more about me. Well, broadly speaking, I’ve always had a strong affinity with the water, and some of my early fond memories revolve around rock pooling and splashing around at the beach. Despite a tumultuous start, I ended up studying at a few different universities and had a fair few adventures along the way!
I initially started my undergraduate studies at Bangor University in Wales, studying Zoology. It was during my time at Bangor that I had my first taste of SCUBA diving, in the form of a pool try-dive. During my time in North Wales, I could often be found surfing on Anglesey or dangling around various climbing crags.
After a summer spent working and travelling across the USA (including catching the odd rattlesnake), I returned to the UK and transferred to the University of Edinburgh for my second year and studied Biological Sciences more broadly. I was then sent on exchange for my third year, with a little detour to Indonesia (where I had the magical experience of my first snorkel on a coral reef! I still recall the vivid colours now…), to Massey University in New Zealand.
It was during my exchange year that my academic studies really focused on marine biology and conservation. One of the first things I did when I arrived in New Zealand was complete my open water dive licence! As soon as I was certified, I headed across to Australia and dove the Great Barrier Reef (if you can’t tell yet, I love a coral reef, but who doesn’t?!).
My love for coral led me to a coral reef conference, which is where I first learned about this scholarship. I love coral so much that, back in Edinburgh, I ended up growing it in the lab, zapping it with lasers (PAM Fluorometry), and CT scanning it for my honours project. You know you’ve spent a little too long staring at coral when you see it in your dreams…
After graduating (and taking a break from coral), I moved to the northern Scottish Isles of Orkney and worked for the Scottish Government’s Nature Agency – NatureScot (formerly known as Scottish Natural Heritage). I started as a Transformative Land Use Adviser before progressing to becoming NatureScot’s Natural Capital Data Scientist. While on Orkney, driven by a desire to serve the local community, I joined HM Coastguard as a Coastguard Rescue Officer. I also got back into diving and undertook my Divemaster training in Scapa Flow.
As you can see, over the last few years, I’ve bounced around various places for a multitude of reasons. Something I’ve learned from my travels and from recent years working in policy, socioeconomics, and stakeholder engagement is that I love people. With that in mind, this year I aim to put people at the heart of what I do. Hence, ‘Sam’s Solutions for Society and The Sea’; as I believe some of the most pressing challenges facing the underwater world are also huge societal challenges, and that without including people at the heart of any initiatives, the outlook looks bleak. However, I also feel that there is enough doom and gloom out there already, so my goal for this year is to highlight the benefits of the underwater world by exploring some new emerging projects and questioning how they could potentially be scaled so their impacts can be tangibly felt by a wider audience.
Many thanks for reading, and stay tuned as I begin my intrepid travels!
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In addition to these blogs, I’ll regularly be posting vlogs, sharing what I get up to on Instagram (feel free to follow me @samphibianthemarvellous) and posting StoryMaps (got to fit in a cheeky bit of GIS somehow wink wink).
P.S. If you still want to know more about me, check out my biography, have a stalk of my LinkedIn or, better yet, get in touch (samuel.thomsen[at]owuscholarship.org)!
