DIVELOG JUNE 406

Introducing… Melissa Versteeg the clownfish whisperer

L ast month on my MAD Crew Adventure to Walindi Plantation Resort, I had the pleasure of meeting Melissa, a PhD student, who was on assignment doing some very important work, investigating anemonefish, using them as a model system to study environmental stress. Melissa has been monitoring them throughout last year's bleaching event on the inshore reefs at Kimbe Bay, West New Britain, Papua New Guinea - a long way from where she grew up in Haarlem, in the Netherlands. I asked her how long she’d been in love with the ocean. “I grew up with water and used to love swimming because we were quite close to the coastline, so we could go the beach often. We’d play outside in the dunes, exploring and learning about the environment from an early age. I had quite an open, adventurous upbringing and was able to run around the streets playing with the other kids and explore free range. When I was in school, Tropical Marine Studies weren't really on the radar because of the lack of tropical reefs in Holland. There's a lot of water-based teaching in school because Holland is below sea level, so we have a really strong affinity with the ocean but more from the perspective of keeping it out. “During my school years I discovered an interest in research, biology, and behaviours, so when I left school, I went to uni and enrolled in Psychology as I wanted to learn how to set up and design research projects and investigate my broad interests. Following that, I explored Neurosciences as I wanted to dive deeper into research and found an interest in genomics and its relationship to animal behaviour. I had an opportunity to do some terrestrial conservation work in Sulawesi (Indonesia) and it was here where I learned to dive. “As my love of diving really kicked in, I found a skill exchange in Panama, where I got to do a lot of diving enabling me to really learn the ropes, get more exposure, and see the seasons change underwater. They were running a program where I helped to establish volunteer work and helped with operational tasks. In return, they taught us to dive and would take us out when there were

spots available, like an internship. Our visa allowed us to stay there for 180 days, and that really gave us plenty of time to capitalise on being in that environment, to gain some continuity and do what we wanted to do. “By then, I had a deeper interest in understanding marine settings and conservation, and I started thinking of ways to get into the field of marine sciences. Because my educational background didn’t necessarily align for every job I applied for, I chose to get the Divemaster certification, as a means to start moving into marine projects. To find a marine science project, I joined a couple of groups on Facebook and Instagram where relevant content on marine projects and internships was being shared. I saw a vacancy for a position in Malaysia at the Perhentian Marine Research Station (PMRS), which was really exciting. PMRS is a social enterprise working locally on implementing educational and local management programs to manage problems with plastic waste, ghost nets, and overfishing, in addition to using low-cost scientific study and citizen science to monitor the local reefs. I found the work rewarding and it taught me a lot. “While there, we studied a large population of magnificent sea anemones, which sparked my interest to apply to do a PhD on these animals. My proposal was accepted at Newcastle University (UK) and that’s how I have ended up at Walindi Plantation Resort in PNG

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DIVE LOG Australasia #406 - June ‘24

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