Help Me Finish My PhD on Seagrass

Hello! My name is Bea. I’m 14 years into marine science and one year from finishing my PhD on mapping seagrass with sonar. I’m also a mom of two with a funding gap, and I’m raising $5,000 to cover health insurance, gas, childcare, and the basics that get me across the finish line. The first $2,500 gets me caught up on bills and back to focusing on the work.

(This is a personal fundraiser, so donations aren’t tax-deductible.)

My long-term goal has always been to help the oceans however I can. Along the way I’ve worked with manatees and sea turtles, taught myself statistics and programming, worked at state and federal scientific institutions, taught high school and college biology, led field research, mentored students, and spent countless hours on (and thinking about) the water.

My dissertation uses acoustic mapping to conserve seagrass meadows in Tampa Bay.

I came full circle back to seagrass. In high school I wrote a research paper on how meadows capture and store carbon (35x more than tropical rainforests!), and I grew plants from seed in my basement for a Chesapeake Bay restoration program.

If you’ve never swum above a seagrass meadow, it’s easy to see why they get overlooked. They’re completely submerged, often invisible from the surface, and they don’t get the attention of coral reefs. But they keep the water clean, shelter fish and countless other species, hold shorelines in place with deep roots, and, like any plant, photosynthesize, pulling carbon dioxide out of the air and locking it away underground. When meadows die, that carbon-trapping power goes with them.

My research asks whether sonar can help us map and manage these meadows better. In acoustic data that’s often thrown out by the seafloor mapping community, I can see living underwater landscapes: dense seagrass, scattered patches, disturbed areas, the structure of an entire meadow. Better maps give scientists and resource managers better information, more often, about the habitats we’re trying to protect.

For most of my career, I’ve pieced together a life in science through grants, fellowships, teaching, research projects, side jobs, and a lot of determination. And life kept unraveling beautifully alongside it all.

I met my husband (a biology teacher and fellow nature nerd) and we built a family while navigating the uncertainty that comes with academic science -- teaching contracts, funding cycle uncertainty, fieldwork, childcare, and all the ordinary expenses of keeping a family going.

Then I became a mom to two wonderful boys.

Two young boys standing in front of the Hillsborough River, the older one is holding a duplo robot
I've continued working throughout it all. But I've reached a point where determination alone isn't enough. I hit a funding gap, and am having trouble making ends meet. I decided to take some good (albeit scary) advice, and crowd source the last bit. Invite you all into this.

Where the $5,000 goes

These are the practical costs that don’t appear in grant budgets, but they’re what let me keep showing up:

Health insurance: $1,500. Staying insured while I finish.

Gas for campus and fieldwork: $1,200. My research and my son’s VPK keep me on the road for a 1 to 2.5 hour commute most days, in a minivan named Voyager, just as charismatic as the SS Voyager but powered by fossils instead of a warp core. I’m as carbon-conscious as they come, and I used to bike or walk to work when I lived on a boat near my office. Until I have a job that can afford an electric vehicle, this is the way.

Parking and vehicle upkeep: $800. Voyager doesn’t have an engineering team. (Parking should be included in tuition, and I will die on this hill.)

Fieldwork essentials: $500. Food, sunscreen, supplies, and the unglamorous basics that make long days on the water possible.

Childcare and VPK tuition: $1,000. I’ve had endless days entertaining a baby in an office, being climbed on while typing, carrying babies on my back while I teach, meet, or trek to the field. I’m so grateful for my job as mom, and for the family and friends who keep care costs lower. But caregiving is real, undervalued work, and my older son’s VPK (at the same college as me!) brings a new set of expenses.

Why I’m asking now

Because I’m finally not scared to ask for help. That’s a lie, I’m still scared. But I want to live in a world where we solve problems together, and I want to pay it forward.

I don’t want to keep proving my commitment to science by seeing how much financial uncertainty and exhaustion I can absorb. I’ve already spent years doing that.

This isn’t a request to fund an indefinite academic career, start another degree, or launch a new research project. It’s help getting across the final stretch of a PhD I’ve spent years earning. The work is dense and needs to be wrapped up with a green bow.

Finishing matters to me not for the letters after my name, but because it gives me the chance to decide what comes next. Maybe research. Maybe environmental work outside academia. Maybe something I haven’t imagined yet. Whatever it is, I’ll use everything I’ve learned to keep doing meaningful scientific and environmental work while building a career that’s sustainable for my family.

How you can help

Any amount helps, whether it’s $10, $25, $50, $100, or more. And if you can’t give, sharing this page with someone who cares about science, conservation, or seagrass means just as much.

I’ll share regular updates with supporters on what your gift is funding and how the dissertation is coming along. It might be messy at times and not always exciting, but I’m sure we’ll find something to talk about.

I believe science matters.

I believe conservation matters.

I believe that understanding the world is one of the ways we learn how to take better care of it for future generations.

And I believe the people doing that work deserve the opportunity to build lives that are sustainable, too.

I promise I will keep showing up for the future I know is possible.

When my four-year-old tells people, “My mom is a scientist. She loves seagrass,” I want to be able to tell him that he was right, and that I never stopped.

Thank you for rooting for me.

♥ Bea

Root for Bea: Seagrass, Science, and Support Needed to Finish Strong.