TEAM DCA

  • Hello, my name is Rylan Lorance, and I am a software engineer and sustainability geek supporting Dear Ocean’s Digital Coral Archive Project. I wanted to devote some extra mental compute power to a philanthropic project, and was drawn to Dear Ocean’s mission. I volunteer my technical skillsets as a data scientist and software engineer: building custom image processing software, managing database infrastructure, and building a bot that automates our upload pipeline. This project has allowed me to connect two passions that aren’t typically connected— wildlife conservation and data. Outside of Dear Ocean, I work at Excarta, a machine learning startup that is paving the way for the next generation of weather modeling. I am also very involved in the SF greentech/bluetech network. When I am not in front of a screen, I am surfing, hiking, or reading.

    My favorite fish is the Giant Porcupine Fish.

  • Hi,

    I am Lise and study oceanography in Liège, Belgium, which is quite far away from Hawaiʻi. My journey to Dear Ocean started by watching the Mission Blue documentary. After the documentary I subscribed to their newletter, and a few months later I ended up emailing Dear Ocean. For me, ocean conservation is one of the things closest to my heart, so therefore volunteering for Dear Ocean was very natural for me. In my free time, I like walking, running and swimming and also a bit of physics here and there.

    My favorite fish is the Sailfin Flying Fish.


  • Aloha! I am Sanjay Velappan, and I'm on the board of Dear Ocean with Dr. Christine Zalewski. I have been working with Christine on Dear Ocean ever since she took me out snorkeling in Hawai'i for the first time and I fell in love with everything on the reefs. But I quickly realized this was just a shadow of what our reefs used to be, and this inspired me to begin my work in ocean conservation. Beyond Dear Ocean, I am an MBA student at UC Berkeley Haas and a part-time VC associate at Foundation Capital. At Haas, I am also a student-venture partner at the Haas Impact Fund, which is specifically focused on ocean/climate technology companies.

    My favorite fish is the Ornate Butterflyfish.


  • Hello, this is Matthew Comer

    I am an environmental scientist working for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife in San Diego. My current projects include invasive exotic plant control and surveying endangered species.

    I was born with high functioning Asperger’s syndrome, in spite of that I continually seek to add to my education. Hobbies include, hiking, snorkeling, reading, and cooking. My favorite fish is the Porcupine Fish.

  • Hello Hello! I am Sameer Swarup and I am a data scientist and marine conservationist supporting the Digital Coral Archive (DCA) project at Dear Ocean.

    I have a history of volunteering my statistical and programming skill sets to social impact projects and I am excited to be doing the same for Dear Ocean, particularly in a space that is near and dear to me. I worked in San Francisco as a data scientist at Pfizer and I am currently a MS/PhD student in marine conservation at Duke University. I believe there are substantial data gaps in the marine conservation space that make it difficult for researchers and policymakers to implement solutions like Marine Protected Areas and I am committing my career to addressing this. It is easy to see why I jumped at the chance to join the DCA team. An opportunity to build a comprehensive and universal database of coral reefs that can assist researchers with building temporal and spatial analyses of reefs all around the world will be instrumental in our fight against climate change-induced bleaching events. 

    In my free time, I freedive, scuba, kayak and surf and my favorite fish is the Oceanic Manta Ray :)


  • Hi there! I'm Lacey, and I've been fortunate to call the ocean my neighbor most of my life. This summer, I'm gearing up for a big move to Oʻahu from California. As an outreach and marketing professional with a background in natural resource management, I've always felt a strong connection to the sea. Driven by my passion for marine conservation, I researched opportunities for work on the islands when I stumbled upon Dear Ocean and became inspired by their Digital Coral Ark project. My hobbies include walking my dog, running, scuba diving, hiking, and exploring tide pools. I also love channeling my creativity into ocean-inspired art.

    While I am mostly partial to whales, my favorite fish is the Mola Mola.

  • Aloha,

    I'm Christine, a former research psychologist and current photographer, digital artist, and accidental environmentalist. While starting down a path to study octopus communication, I noticed an accelerated decline in Hawaii's near-shore reefs and began photo-documenting coral colonies over time. One thing led to another until Dear Ocean was founded and the Digital Coral Ark turned from a wish into a reality.

    My favorite fish is the Hawaiian Cleaner Wrasse!

PLUS

All of the amazing people who have loved and documented special places under the water for decades and have chosen to share their images with the Digital Coral Ark. Check some of them out on our Contributor Spotlights page!

MAHALO!