There are so many graduate students that are doing amazing things and people in science that are doing amazing things with science, not only on their graduate work or their scientific work, but also their side hustles or what they like to if they really get involved in science and they have a little bit of a knack or a skill to develop something, they can develop something. And today we're actually going to be talking to page hole who just finished her PhD in the coastal eutrophication from UCLA in the US, but she's also known for a little page that she has on TikTok and it's at 98,900 followers right now and it continues to grow. There are some videos where she talks about different stories around like surfing waves and sort of the impacts of the Olympics on surfing waves. She also talks about the resolute desk in the White House and how that has an oceanographic tie to it. She does these stories in just amazing ways and I want to have her on the podcast so badly and she actually reached out to be on the podcast, which I was so happy so we have her on today. We are going to talk to page about science communication and about her PhD work and just science in general. So let's start the show. Hey everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host Andrew Lewin and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action. And on today's episode, we're going to be talking about speaking up for the ocean because we have page hole who's on the podcast today talking about not only her PhD work that she did on coastal eutrophication and how she makes that really exciting to hear about, but also about her science TikTok, her science communication TikTok efforts, which are absolutely amazing. If you want to go to her TikTok, it's at little L-I-L ocean page, P-A-I-G-E. You can check it out. You're not going to be alone in watching her videos, but she has this incredible knack to tell stories and it's out of this world. I was a huge fan of her before she reached out to me to be able to be on this. She goes, "Hey, do you want me to come on the podcast? I can talk about this and this." I was like, "Yes." Absolutely, yes. I'm a huge fan of yours. I'm really looking forward to it, which it was an amazing podcast. We talked for over an hour about her PhD, about her science communication efforts, and it was absolutely riveting for me anyway, so I hope it is for you. She's a super interesting individual. She tells stories on this podcast, like she tells stories on TikTok, and it was absolutely a pleasure to have her on. A lot of the times when you hear people do a science communication effort or dedicate their time to doing science communication, you don't really hear about the nuts and bolts of how they put videos together or how they put a tweet together or how they put a strategy together. Page goes in depth into that, and I think it's really interesting. On the other side of that, on the science side of it where she actually does science, she talks a lot about how she grew up wanting to do a PhD. It ran in her family. I've never heard of that, but it ran in the family where multiple people in their family had PhDs, and so she always thought she was going to do a PhD, and then she got interested at the age of four or five of in oceanography, which is insane if you think about it. Now here she is just finishing a PhD in coastal eutrophication, oceanography, and just being super interested in that stuff that we don't really hear about all the time. Oceanography is not as common as we think. When we hear about someone studying the ocean, we automatically go to marine biology. She's like, "No, oceanography is for me," and that's what I want to do. She talks about her journey to there, how she chose the project that she did, and why it was so important, and then of course the science communication aspect. There's so much to get out of this episode. You're probably going to want to listen to it more than once, and I don't blame you, but here's the interview with Dr. Page-hole, enjoy, and I'll talk to you after. Hey Page, welcome to the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Are you ready to talk about all things oceans and ocean storytelling? Oh, I am so ready. I was born ready. I feel that. I feel that because I have to admit, like I do a little research before I have people come on, and I did a lot of research on your TikTok page, and you probably tell the best stories that I ever, like I'm a huge fan. So I'm very excited when you reach out, you're like, "Hey, Andrew, do you want me to come on your podcast? I can talk about my PhD. I can talk about the story." I'm like, "Absolutely. This is awesome," and we found out we're both fans of each other, so that's going to be a lot of fun. Exactly. There's going to be a lot of conversation, but I want my audience to get to know you today, and to get to know what you did for your PhD, how you got to the point, where are you doing a PhD, and what you want to do it on, and then even into the science communication, how you kind of fell into that and just realized you're like, "Hey, people like the way I tell stories. Okay, I like this, so we'll just see how that goes." But before we get into all that, Paige, why don't you just let people know who you are, and what you do? Yes. Well, thank you for the kind intro, Andrew. So my name is Paige, and I am an oceanographer. I have a PhD in Atmospheric and Oceanic Science, and I have more recently become known as a little ocean page, or PhD page-y, on TikTok, and I've had a relatively successful ocean TikTok for the last year or so, and I'm really just enjoying all the science communication and spreading the wonder that I've always had for the ocean, but now getting random strangers on the internet to learn along with me, it's been such a blast. That's awesome, because I am, as you know, I'm a huge proponent of getting people involved in the ocean. People who aren't studying the ocean full-time or marine biologists or coastal scientists or oceanographers and conservationists who may not know much about the ocean and want it to be entertained at the same time as learning, and I think you do a perfect job in balancing those two, and it's not an easy thing to do, and we definitely appreciate it. What got you into the ocean the first place? You say you've always had a curiosity. And do you remember that first time you were like, "Ooh, I like this place?" Yes. Well, how much time do we have? We have lots of time. No, so I was always one of those, I have a frankly annoying story, which is that I just knew from the jump. I was like four or five years old, and I saw a, we had a VHS tape of Robert Ballard, Dr. Ballard, finding the battleship Titanic, and you know, the battleship is Mark. It's the same scientist who found the Titanic original, but this was a VHS tape on him finding the battleship is Mark, and he, prolific oceanographer, he used all these different tools and now a very outdated technology to find the battleship, but I watched this VHS tape until it couldn't play anymore. I was just so... Even at that ease, like four and five years old. Wow. Wow. I was sold. I just wore the ocean as a job, like that's the thing that you can do. I'm sold, and it helped that my grandmother lived in San Diego, and we would go down to visit her, and we'd spend our Saturdays just like at the beach, sand on every single part of my body, in the water. I was always a, like, a water baby, and I just remember, like, wondering how the waves never stopped. Right. Like, the waves keep coming, and every time I come here, there's waves, and I'm like, "Yeah." "What is this place?" So that, like, imagination was just, like, from the jump, and from there on out, it was like, kind of a done deal. So, yeah, from there, I really progressed, I helped that I was good at math and science and physics. Just about to ask that. Yeah. Chemistry. I was always... My family is, like, pretty scientific and background. I'm actually, like, one of a bajillion PhDs in my family. Okay. Yes. Which is an advantage in the sense that I was like, "Well, if my dad can get one, if my grandpa can get one, if my great grandmother had one, you know, like, why not me?" It seemed like a very, like, not like it was an expectation, but almost in a sense, seemed very accessible, because I was like, "Well, they all did it, so I didn't like it. Why not me?" Yeah. But yeah, I knew I was interested in oceanography, not marine biology. I find marine biology fascinating, but I, like, can't see blood, so the thought of cutting any animal open was, like, a no-go for me. But yeah, I understood that, like, oh, it's understanding the physics of the ocean, understanding the chemistry of the water. And yeah, it was just like, "Okay, that's what I've got to do. I've got to be good at math. I've got to be good at chemistry. I've got to be good at physics." And then it also helped, too, that my dad makes software for a mapping company. So maps are very prolific in our household. Yes, yes. And loved maps, maps of the ocean floor, maps of countries and interesting-- Even like the older maps, right, where the geography changes and the sort of the morphology changes as you go through it. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So it was pretty-- yeah, it was kind of straightforward for me from the jump. I was like, "Okay, I love the ocean. I'm good at school. I'm just going to keep riding this." And so the wheels are off. I love it. Now, were you one of those students, say, in high school, like, you know, it's a math-intensive subject matter, even just to get into science, to get into university, right? You've got to take your physics. You've got to take your chemistry. You've got to take your calculus and functions and whatever that might be. Were you a student that naturally-- like, you were able to learn it pretty quickly? Or did you have to, like, work your butt off to get that? I understand. Yeah. I think so. There's no wrong answer, by the way, on this. Yeah, yes, in that. Well, I'd be lying if I say I wasn't just good at math. I've always been good at math. But I think when I got into high school and in college, university really was a kick in the butt my first year, because in high school, I knew the exact amount of time I could put in, and I would get a result, and it would work. And then I just assumed that would transfer to a university, and I did my undergraduate at UC Santa Barbara, which is like a pretty rigorous school. And going through that, it was like Calc to my first quarter. I failed. I've got a D. I've never gotten anything lower than it would be in my entire life. I was like, whoa! Oh my gosh! And I was so upset. I think I got a C in chemistry, and I was like, oh, I thought you could see it. First year college, kick your butt, it kicks everybody's butt, right? Oh my gosh, but I remember being so upset, and my mom was like, my mom came into my room and was like, so you just think, because you worked hard, you're entitled to an A, is that what you think? Like, welcome to your world page. I was like, whoa! But I mean, she was right, she was right, and she's like, it's not about you feeling this class. It's like, what are you going to do now? You gotta pick yourself up, like, brush your knees off, like, deal with your bruise ego later. What are you going to do now? And I think normalizing, like, failing, so many people fail so many times before they get it right. I think the perception that you need to be perfect at everything will cripple you. You don't achieve anything, because you'll just be scared. But, yeah, I mean, I failed two math classes in college and undergrad, and I retook them and I got A's the second time, I did okay in physics, I got through it, I took, like, the engineering level of physics. So it's like, the hella hard. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but also too, it's, you know, I've always known that I had a good storytelling ability, and I've always known that what I lack, like, even if I'm not an A plus student, my enthusiasm counteracts that, and we can't all be the same, like, you know, there can be someone that's better than me at research, but can't tell the story. So how valuable is the research that they did, if no one's going to know about it. Yeah, or even tracks with, when you go for a grant, it's a storytelling exercise, right? And you apply for a grant, so you can maybe be able to do the research and kick butt in the research, but if you can't get the grant to pay for the research, you're not going to be able to do the research in the first place, right? So it is, you know, that comes into play, that personalization comes into play, right? Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, absolutely. So what did, you know, during that part, like, that's a tough time, and a lot of students go through that. That's just not you. I went through that. A lot of people, we get humbled in university. It doesn't matter the year, there's always one course or two courses that were really humbled. For me, it was invertebrate zoology one and two that, you know, our lab test, our lab exam, was like, you had to identify the animal in a microscope, and then you answered a question on it. If you got the animal wrong, you were marked like six out of ten, you know, to get perfect, right? So, and it was never an animal that you've seen before. It was always an animal that you hadn't seen before, but you had to go through the process and identify the kingdom and the phylum and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. Super, super difficult. But, like, for me, I learned, like, to be resilient. Like, how did that teach you to sort of, like, because, like, look, doing a PhD is harder than undergrad. Right? So how did that teach you to, like, fight back and just be like, no, I'm going to scrape and crawl and do what I can to take everything that I know and to believe in myself to be able to do that kind of work? Yeah. Like, that's the key or the belief. It's such a fake it till you make it type of deal because you realize, like, that you realize when you're in university that, you know, it goes to ways. Sometimes it's like, everyone's smarter than me. Everyone has to all this knowledge. But then you also do realize, well, everyone has to learn it once, you know, everyone was a beginner at some point. And when you get to a certain level of academics, a lot of it, I do think, is great. Like, obviously, you need a certain amount of, like, you know, ability to retain knowledge, but at a certain point, I definitely realized as an undergrad, I was like, I think this is just about just pushing, just pushing onwards, ask, and also to, like, asking for help, asking, and putting yourself in the situations that you didn't think you deserved, why not try? Yep. Like, as an undergrad, I took graduate level classes my last year because I was like, you know what? Why not? Yeah. Like, let me just ask these professors and see if I have the chops to get through a couple of graduate level classes. And if I could be back, then why can't this, like, why can't this, but I started and part of it, yes, you got to be a little bit cocky to be like, yeah, why not me? I got this. Why not? Yeah, I got this, whatever. And what's the worst that's going to happen, right? Like, my, you know, my worst case scenario is really not that bad in the grand scheme of things. So I might as well shoot my shot, but I do, I feel like a lot of, once I realized, I just needed to ask and put myself out there and, like, continue to, like, bite off seemingly more than I could chew, um, I was rewarded. It was like, oh, you want to do an undergraduate thesis with some esteemed professor? Great. He's excited to work with an undergrad or, like, you want to intern for this company in Denmark? Cool. They're actually interested in you because you asked, like, so much of... Yeah. ...opportunities, like, in this podcast, like, you just got to ask, you know, you don't, you don't, you don't wait for life to happen to you. You got to, like, go after it. And so in, in terms of a PhD as well, where that is a five-year exercise and getting kicked in the teeth, like, it is so humbling, but at the same time, like, you just got to ask, you just got to keep, like, you're there, you may, you found your way there. Yeah. Not for nothing, like, keep trying, keep asking. And a lot of a PhD, too, which I didn't realize until maybe halfway through, is, it's proving that you're a scientist. It's like making yourself into a scientist, improving to your scientist. It's not about being right because so much of science is getting things wrong. And if you're so afraid to get things wrong that you don't do anything a little bit risky or do any interesting research or come up with any interesting ideas, then you're kind of feeling your PhD because you're not there to get it right. It's not a class where there's A, B, C, D, an exercise in making yourself into a scientist. And so that is a totally different experience, but it gets back to, like, the grit, like, just ask, just keep, just push, even if you don't think you deserve to be there, like, just keep going. Well, here's the case in point, when you reached out to ask, to be on the podcast, you were on my mind to ask, to be on the, like, I was going to ask you to be, I just never did. I'll be like, she's at 98,000 followers on TikTok. There's no way she's going to, like, she must get messages upon messages upon messages. So if I DM her, is she going to even see the message, right? And then we find out we're fans of each other and you're just like, oh my God, like, yeah, yeah, people and yes, of course I want you on the podcast and, you know, it is just a matter of asking and putting yourself out there to just be like, yeah, might as well, you know, yeah, but that's such a hard thing to get over. I think, especially as a young undergrad student, I think it's one of those things where even in the science, like, we all have friends we've probably ruined with or, or been in a house with during the undergrad where they're in business and they don't start class until one o'clock in the afternoon. And meanwhile, like, I start, I started when I was at 830 every semester of undergrad career and I went because there's labs that happen in the afternoon that are all afternoon and as much fun as they are, it's a hard day. It's a hard day's work and it's a hard program to get through, no matter what you're going through science related, it's a hard program to get through. And so like during that time, you know, you still have, you know, the want to do, you know, oceanography and all that type of work. What was going through your mind during your undergrad, like how did your mind change or did your mind change in terms of what you wanted to do afterwards, whether it be work or even PhD or what you wanted to kind of what avenue and what field you want to go down. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a great question. I was so gung ho oceanography that I thought, this is my freshman year, freshman or sophomore year. I was like, you know what? If I want to do oceanography, I should talk to grad students who are doing it right now and see what they have to tell me, B, if it seems like they're having a good time. So I reached out, I sent Lord knows how many emails, probably like 30 or 40 emails. So I went on to, and UC Santa Barbara is like a mecca for oceanography. So I looked on all of the different departments websites, like the geography department, the earth science department, the, and I was majoring in earth science and geography. So I already knew some of those grad students, they had it like a special, special ocean science graduate school. I found everyone who was doing research that I was remotely interested in, and I sent them the emails like, hey, I'm an undergrad, your research sounds cool. Can we sit down for coffee? Can I come by your office? And eventually what that ended up with was I got opportunity to do research with one graduate student who is towards the marine biology and like fishery side. And I helped him out with his research for like almost a full year, and that was cool because I got to see, he was in year two, three of his PhD, and I got to see what that kind of phase was like. And then I got another grad student responded to me, Alexa, who like kind of remained my mentor to this day, and she was an absolute dynamite, I couldn't believe she was even talking to me. But she was like, your email wasn't doing it, and I wanted to help you out. Yeah, you seemed really enthusiastic. And so through those relationships and just staying really in tune with the faculty, I loved, we had some great professors, and I just went to office hours every single opportunity I could. And even if I didn't have questions, I just wanted to talk to them and be like, yeah, do you get into oceanography, how this? And actually my, I think this was my junior year, I think this was my junior year, Robert Ballard, Bob Ballard came to talk to the earth science faculty at UCSB. He's actually UCSB alum, and I got an email about it. This was like supposed to be a faculty meeting. I don't know how I got the email, but I was like, oh my gosh, drop everything. I went home to go get my one of his books, Eternal Darkness, which is about, and I brought it, and it's a faculty meeting with a round-around table. I see, thankfully I knew the professors, they're like, Paige, what are you doing here? And I was like, I don't know what I was thinking. And after the meeting, I went up to Dr. Ballard, and I was like, I'm being cool right now, but I'm such a huge fan of this, like, like a life-changing moment, and can you sign my book? And can we take a picture? So through my undergrad, I was really like emboldened, I was like, yeah, I can do this. Yeah. I can, like, it is worth my time, and it helped that I had, I had friends out, obviously outside, and like UC Santa Barbara is like known to be a party school. So, you know, you get a little bit of everything, there's like great academics, but it's also semi-in-70 every single day, and you're on the beach. So, you know, at times it was like, oh man, I wish I didn't have two tough majors to do. But at the same time, it was just like so cool, and the instructors were good, and I could see I was making progress towards my goal. Like, I could see, okay, like, people were talking to me, I was like presented at a conference, like all those little things that made me affirm to me that all of my efforts were not for nothing. It would be different, I think, if I was just taking classes, and I was like, what am I doing all this work for? But I responded well to external affirmation, so I was like, okay! Yeah, but did you think also too, like, there's the affirmation part, but it's also, it's that it's almost that motivation when you start to volunteer with somebody to help them do their graduate work, it's like, oh, this is really cool stuff, like, this is amazing stuff. Like, even the student you said, it was a bit more marine biology, it probably confirmed you're like, yeah, I'm probably not into the whole marine biology thing, but there's all this other stuff, did you get to do some field work with this graduate student? Yes, so there you get to do the field work, that's cool, it just motivates you to want to do it that much more, right? Yes, yes, absolutely, if we were collecting crabs, we went into the field, we went on boats to go get crabs, I was like, this is so cool, and then we had crab tanks, and we would dissect the crabs, which was so disgusting, but I still I was like, whoa, this is so neat. Yeah, true, true, true, true, I saw more crab carapuses than I would like to have, but still, it was like, I like this whole process, it's interesting, I can feel myself doing this, and yeah, like, no, I felt like no time was wasted, so I'm thankful I went through all of it. It's not for the faint of heart, it is like, very time consuming, if you really pursue it. Well, and I think that's what a lot of people don't realize when they go into undergraduate and even graduate work, is it's supposed to take up a lot of time, like, not just do it, you're not just there to go through the motions, get the marks, get the classes, and then graduate. University can offer so much more, like college can offer so much more, and it's up to you to take advantage of that, I find in my experience anyway, and this is not everybody's experience, it sounds like it's quite like your experience where professors are very open to conversation. If you show passion, you show you want to help out, or you want to do something, you want to volunteer, they will have you in their labs, if they have room, you know, if there are people who want to go out in the field, they're always looking for undergraduates to help graduate students, and I think that really helps, and I find, like, with my experience, the professor had like a little community in their lab, and it was like, you felt part of that, that almost became a bit of your friend group, like your professional friend group, and I still have those friendships to this day, and now we're like sometimes we're colleagues when we work, and stuff, and so that it's a kind of a cool experience, but you have to kind of get out of the, it's true, you gotta get out of the party and social side all the time to really immerse yourself into the university atmosphere, and the ability to do research, or field work, or extra skill sets, or whatever that might be, to be able to do that. I think that's really cool, but I... It's hard to have that perspective at that age, too, to know the opportunity that you have. For sure. When you're 18 years old, you're just like, "In the next thing to do, it's hard to know that like, this is your opportunity that you'll never have again, hard to know." Well, there's also, there are a lot of distractions at university, there's a lot to do. Like, you can get involved in clubs, you can get a job, and out of bar, and that becomes your life, and you know, it's hard. There's a lot to, I mean, especially in the US, when university sports are such a big thing, you get the whole fraternity aspect is a big thing, and there's like the independent aspects. "I rode my freshman year." There you go. Yeah, all right. Sometimes that could be opportunities for you, like that could lead to other opportunities, but other times it could be a distraction to what you want to do if your group is not necessarily focused on the same thing, and so you really have to work a little extra to get to that, which you did, which is awesome. But at what point where you're like, "I'm going to do a PhD?" You had your family who were probably like, "Yeah, you could do it, like you're on track to do it." But at what point did you be like, "I want to do a PhD, but not only doing a PhD, but I want to do it in coastal eutrophication," because that's very specific. Yes. So, yeah, the PhD thing was always kind of set for me because it was really in high school when I thought about, "Okay, I'm interested in the ocean. What specific jobs could I get?" And I looked into actually being an oceanographer, what does that entail? There are very few oceanographer jobs where you don't have a PhD, because you're doing research, oceanography is not cheap. They need very well-educated people to do it. So I knew from the jump, I was like, "Okay, I'm going to have to get a PhD." But coastal eutrophication came to me kind of my sophomore, junior year of college. I was taking a biogeochemistry class, biology, geology, and chemistry all put together. And it was a marine biogeochemistry class. It was taught by David Valentine at UCSB, shout out. He's an incredible biogeochemistry chemist. And yeah, I just remember the nutrient cycles were so fascinating to me and how, you know, nutrients interact so tightly with primary productivity and the biological pump. And then it was like, "Oh my gosh, we are really altering the nutrient cycle of the ocean in a way that we never have before, never." Because if you even think about, you know, the earth has been around for billions of years, there have been times where the ocean has been incredibly warm and the physics has changed and the weather is different, but we've, the eutrophication that influx of human nutrients is unprecedented. We've never seen anything like this. And once I realized how interconnected it all was and how you could be a coastal, you could be a coastal ocean biogeochemist and focus specifically on oxygen or focus specifically on nitrogen or, you know, there's like a million different angles. And I also think too, I love research for the sake of research, but to be frank, I want to do something that's like directly in touch with humanity and how we interact with the ocean because the ocean is a resource for us. It's also like maintaining our planet and I find the interchange really interesting. Like, okay, if we do need to dispose of wastewater and we don't live in a perfect world where there's no wastewater, what's the safest way in which we can dispose of it in the ocean because we're not in a perfect world. And so all of those kind of questions really fascinated me. So that was about my junior year of college and then my senior year, I did kind of a eutrophication style thesis and I was totally enthralled. I was also enthralled with harmful algal blooms. Right. I had, and actually I was exposed to those when I was doing research with the graduate student who was taking crabs because some of the crabs had demoic acid which is prevalent on the west coast of the United States from harmful algal blooms and I was like, what? Like, this crab is poisoned and he's like, yep, you wouldn't eat this crab. And that also to me is just like, wow, like it's also interconnected. And so those are what come then that I was like, all right, it's coastal eutrophication done. That's awesome. And so like for your PhD, did you do it at UCLA? Is that where you did your PhD? Okay. So you move down the coastline a little bit to UCLA. Who was your supervisor and like, why did you pick that supervisor? Yeah. So my advisor was Danielle Bionki and while I was looking at graduate schools, I looked at all the major oceanographic schools and I was like, okay, who's doing coastal eutrophication? It wasn't until kind of at the end of my search that I was talking to a scientist at scripts Clarissa Anderson and she was really involved in harmful algal bloom research. And I was like, I think I'm interested in how human nutrients affect harmful algal blooms. And she was like, I don't have any money, but I have a colleague who's really smart, who just got a grant, you should go talk to him. And so yeah, I was crazy too because I worked so hard on my applications for like five other schools. But the last minute he was like, yeah, I applied to UCLA. And I was like, okay, cool. And so I ended up there and it was a great fit. I liked that his work was modeling based. So using a big coupled physical biogeochemical model to make estimates instead of in C2 sampling, which has so many merits, but that is really expensive, really time consuming at the whim of the ocean, too. It's an unforgiving environment. Pacific. Yeah. Yes. But in California, you would be shocked, you know, so I was, and I love the like, and this really gets into like my geography background, but I love that the spatial resolution of a model is everything. A model is inherently false because it is a model, but when you're dealing with ocean observations, you are at the whim of where can you take your ship, where is, where is a pier, where is a buoy, and you have to guess for everything else, whereas like the model really appealed to me. So yeah, once I was in, I was so happy to be there. He ended up actually ended up that another student he had coming in was like a better fit for the harmful algal bloom research. Okay. So I just moved into general utrophication in coastal Southern California, that region of ocean around Southern California, and I focused, at the beginning of my PhD, I specifically focused on wastewater treatment and policies, so yeah, in Southern California about a billion gallons of wastewater are pumped back onto the ocean every single day. A lot of wastewater. A lot of wastewater. That affects things. That affects things. Yes, exactly. And it's treated, it's all treated wastewater, so it's treated to a secondary degree, meaning that all the organics, all of like the poop and urine, non-assie stuff, it's turned back into inorganic nitrate and ammonium, but still when you pump that much nitrate and ammonium into the ocean, it's going to have major impacts on phytoplankton and primary production. And so my research focused on some hypothetical scenarios of different water treatment. Yeah. And as we start to recycle more wastewater, how is that going to change where things are growing in Southern California? And especially as the population increases too. Yes. Right? That's a huge factor as well. Yeah. 23 million people in counting. So very reliant and the beaches of Southern California are visited more than the beaches of the entire rest of the United States combined. I believe that. It's just amazing. So it's like how do we keep these beaches healthy, but also we do really rely on like, well, also are we going to dispose of this wastewater? So I love that like human ocean, those questions I love. And now especially with like offshore wind energy becoming very prevalent all over. I love the spatial question of like, where could you do this? Where would this be smartest, where is safe for marine species? These questions, I love to think about all the different angles, so it was an easy decision. Especially as the complexity increases, like the ocean users increase, like you mentioned, bringing in offshore wind power, but you also have, you know, fishers, you also have, you know, beach goers, you also have cruise ships and shipping in general, just trans shipping in general. Then you have like rivers and I think it's, is it the Tijuana River that empties out in California? Right. So San Diego. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And that's a, that's a river to like that has a lot of stuff in it. Let's just say. Yes. To come out. Right. And so they got known. Yeah. And it's a lot. It's a big water area, but it's, there's a lot of people on the coast and that has to be accounted for. And that, and so that's a, that's a really interesting thing, but not a lot of people think about it. So like when you talk to your, about your PhD to even your family who are full of PhDs, right? Like, you know, you talk about that, do they, do they relate to eutrophication, even friends and stuff like that? Do they relate to that? Because like, you know, when you see people studying oceanography, some of us like, like a lot of oceanographers deep sea biology these days and then with the whole deep sea mining and stuff that that becomes popular, eutrophication always seems like water quality always seems, even though it's super important, it's always at the lower end of, of the scale when, like when it comes to interest until like a massive algal bloom, algal bloom comes out. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And I think with like having grown up, so I grew up about an hour and a half inland from LA, like closer towards Palm Springs. So even if, you know, you don't go to the beach all the time, people know when it's like, oh, I heard there was a red tide, like, oh, I heard there was, you know, and I do think. You call that or something. Yeah. Yes. People are very interested. I think it is, and you know, with my research, I moved on to understanding how eutrophication impacts help and people have so many questions. They're like, yeah, I still have a bunch of help here, and why isn't help growing here anymore? And so I will say, and especially in the sense that water treatment contributes so much nutrients to the ocean. And it's so important for California, we're in South California, like in a drought half of time. Yeah. So it is really important to like have these conversations about what are we doing with our water? Yeah. Where is it going? Well, desalination. So I will say my, I'm grateful that my research is usually really well received to the point where I'm a graduation party. I had to, I was like, I gave a presentation on my research to all my friends and family, and then I said, please, can we talk about anything else for us? I love the questions, but I have gotten so many of the last like five years. But yeah, I will say it's well received, especially to, as in Southern California is very progressive with their water treatment standards, it's definitely very far. The Ocean Protection Council, OPC, is part of California State Water Board. They're very aggressive in treating their water, and it is paid off. So all very interesting, and again, it's just like it all relates because people care, if they don't care about wastewater, if they care about fish, and the quality of the water impacts where fish are. And everyone wants to know why there is stinky kelp on their beach, or why there isn't kelp where it used to be. You know, it's like all of these questions and with sharks in Southern California, they're like, what's the deal with the sharks, you know, and that I know less about, but I do know about the fish, and I know the fish are related to the primary production, which relates to wastewater. So it all kind of comes back together. So usually people are like, what, like, tell me more, what does this mean? I'm sorry, I'm trying to ask. And that takes me to your communication, like a side hustle or whatever it might be. People asking you questions and your ability to answer them in a way that's interesting for people. How was that, like, how did you develop that skill set? Is that just sort of one of those things where like, I just enjoy telling stories, and this is just the way it comes out as I do it? Yeah, I think the writing was on the wall looking back, like, for example, I had science projects in elementary and middle school, and I would pretend to be like an oceanographer on TV, or I would be a TV meteorologist. Yeah, I always loved to communicate science. I found it so interesting, and I always did kind of have a knack for it. It wasn't until it was around COVID, right when COVID was happening, I had, I just started my PhD, and I was going to teach a general education class at UCLA on climate change. And this was like a big class, like 400 students, and most of them non-majors, so most of them like calm majors, psych majors, and frankly, most of them go into, and I don't know if you have any experience teaching a GE, but most students go into an oceanography class or climate change class, not knowing that it's going to be a lot of math and physics. Right. Right. I'm going to go on polar bears and whales, and it's just, nope, it's like radiation on earth. I wish you know that, it's about radiation, and so, I was, I wanted to do a really good job teaching, and so, I started a lecture series for my friends. And this was the beginning of COVID, where everyone was like doing virtual happy hours and stuff, and so, I was like, hey friends, like, I'm going to teach you about climate change, I'm going to have one lecture a week, it's going to be 30 or 45 minutes, it's going to be informal, and I'm going to- That's so smart. Yeah. So, so, so I practiced teaching first to a general audience, because I knew it's so hard when you were deep in the science, to remember that most people are not, like, I, it is the bane of my existence trying to get other scientists and faculty, you know, remember that, try and remember a time where you didn't know anything about this, and now explain it. Yeah. You know, now explain it from square one. And so, with all of my friends from like every different, you know, walk of life, I would give these lectures, and that was super enjoyable, so that then morphed into, that actually was really fun, and then after I was done with my lectures, all of my friends each gave a lecture on something from their industry, which was- Yeah. But from that lecture series, I made a newsletter, and so, I would do a newsletter every like month or so related to climate change oceanographic stuff. I went on two oceanographic cruises, one with the Goshik program, which does repeat cruises doing carbon measurements. So they go on a couple different routes all around the world, and every like 10 years, they measure all the carbonate chemistry, and see how carbon is changing in the ocean because it's sequestering carbon dioxide, so I did that, and I did a lot of newsletters when I was on that cruise, because people had so many questions. I was like, "Great, let me just do a bunch of newsletters while I'm at sea," and I did the same thing. I had another cruise with NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That one was more mapping-focused. Again, I did a bunch of newsletters while I was doing that. But all the while, I was still teaching that climate change class at UCLA, and now in person, but still, I had so many students tell me like, "Page, you should start a TikTok," and I was like, "I wasn't even on TikTok." I was like, "I don't know, I think I'm too old." I was like, "I don't even know who's on TikTok." I figured it was like all dancing, and I was like, "I don't think so." I have a girlfriend who I love so dearly. She makes running content. She was a collegiate runner, and we became best friends, and I told her I was like, "Well, actually, I'm thinking about starting a YouTube channel," and she was like, "Do not do that." She's like, "I'm on YouTube, and I'm on TikTok, and let me tell you, no one's going to see your stuff on YouTube for years. You should make a TikTok." It's a long, long-term game, yeah. She's like, "If you want people to pay attention right now, you should make a TikTok." I was like, "Okay, so it was born from there." It was because she did it, and then I still wasn't. I still couldn't believe that I figured oceanography was over-saturated on TikTok. I was like, "There's got to be great ocean people out there." I wasn't on it, so I didn't know who was doing, but I figured, I was like, "Ah, so I started a channel actually making some undergrad college tips, and PhD tips in terms of how do you apply to your PhD program, how do you find a good advisor, what kind of workload can you expect?" I was doing that for about, I don't know, half a year to a year, and I had a modest following. I think at $20,000, $10,000 or something. I know we talk about TikTok being huge in terms of followers, but that's still a lot, $20,000. Yeah, it was cool that a lot of people felt like they really trusted me, Bob, I think the blonde Bob is very endearing, and they keep going, and they're like, "She's not that." She's not that. I honestly believe that. I've had this here come my whole life, I'm like, "I think this has some power." Yeah, and then I was still doing the separate newsletters about oceanography stuff, and then it was one of my dads, one of my dads, old fat buddies who I all consider to be uncles. He sent me an email, and he was like, "What is the Atlantic Muriano overturning circulation, and what is going on?" I did a whole newsletter on it, and I was like, "Let me just, the newsletters are super informal," and so I was like, "Let me also just film a TikTok," and that TikTok blew up. I got a couple million views, and I was like, "Oh, okay, people do want to hear about it." People do want to hear, and I guess I have their expertise, and from there it was so fun, so fun to put the videos together, and it just blew my mind every time that I was like, "How are hundreds of thousands or millions of people watching this? I'm so glad they are." But yeah, it just fit very well, and again, a lot of it, I think, goes back to that teaching experience that I had at the university level, where it's like, "How do I get these college freshmen that are looking at me like they want to die when I just told them how much physics they need to learn?" You know, these entire equations understand the earth, and I'm like, "No, stay with me." This is actually really cool, I promise we can get through this. Let me make an analogy, and from there on out, it was like, yeah, it was a good fit. And honestly, it really blew up the last year of my PhD, my final year, and it provided such a nice reprieve at times. Because you're right, you're focused on writing at that point, it's not as much pain as writing. And it's just stressful, and you know what's gonna get done, but you don't feel like you can do it, and every once in a while, I'd be like, "What if I make a TikTok about thermal expansion of water?" Okay, let me do that, and I'd take an hour to dally a little bit, but it ended up being like very motivating and fun for me to do, so yeah, kind of quick from there. I love it. Now, where did you, with TikTok, it's almost like a style that people have, right? Like, some people will have like dancing videos, that's probably when first people think about TikTok, they think of dancing videos, but there's others who, you know, there's like political TikTok, there's science TikTok, there's book talk, I think they call it. It's all these different categories, and everybody has, within each category, they have their own style, and lately, like if I go back to your last, probably like 30 videos, it's very much like you need to learn about this, like you need to know, have you heard of this, and it's like that nice hook where you're just like, "Oh no, I haven't heard of this, I need to know about this." And then you go into a lot of detail in your stories, like useful information that really makes the story interesting. How long did it take for you to realize this is like a fun formula for you to use, but also a winning formula to in terms of like getting people to view and watch and enjoy your content? Yeah, it really hit from the first, like from, "I made a TikTok about," so there is research released on the Atlantic, Mariano, Overturning Circulation, and that's the flow of warm water from the Gulf Stream up to kind of the Arctic region, and how it subducts underneath the Atlantic, like North Atlantic, and a report came out about how it's like potentially shutting down how it's very concerning, and I was like, "Okay, let me make a TikTok on this," but if I say Atlantic, Mariano, Overturning Circulation, swipe immediately, I was like, "Okay, no." So I forget what I took a screenshot of the headline that I've seen, it was all in like CNN or something, it was like a very dramatic headline, it was like Ocean Circulation may shut down and da-da-da-da-da, and I started a TikTok, like it's a green screen, or my face was on it, and which is like the way it started, it was a lot of people's initial reaction, which would be just like, "Oh no, like a day, so I waited a second, yeah, so I waited a second for people to be able to read the headline," which is crazy, and like, you know what, if it worked for the article, it would work for my TikTok, right, like people will be invested, so I read that I was like, "Oh no," and then I was like, "Here's what this means," like, "Let's break down why this is an alarming thing," so that format worked great, and the whole, my whole style is like, talk a little bit, green screen, point to figure, talk, point, show, I've always been a very visual learner, but also too with, again, with teaching, I find that like the, as little text as possible, pictures, like, tell a visual story, TikTok is a visual app, so I knew that, obviously what I had, what I said had to be engaging, but also I wanted to be able to be like, "Look at me, now look at this, now look at me," and I didn't know at the time it was a winning formula, but after, like, I've grown in popularity, people are like, "Oh did you know, yeah, it's so smart of you to show your face," because people like to see your face online because it makes them feel like they know you better, and it's like, all these things that I was just doing, just, you know, giving these like, sentence, sentence, sentence, like, changing the pictures, I didn't realize what I was doing was a winning thing to do until I'd made like, a couple good videos, which I enjoyed, and I was like, "Oh, this seems to be working," but I will say, yeah, the hardest part of my videos is the hook, is like, where do I begin? Because I find everything interesting, but there's so many crazy, fascinating stories about the ocean and the atmosphere and our climate that I could tell, but the hook on TikTok, it's like, you lose people in the first three seconds, if that's like half a second, if they don't like what they see, if something on the page doesn't capture them, you know, like, I've watched videos on just even YouTube shorts where people are like, if you zoom in right away, then people start to, you know, that catches the eye, if you walk into the scene that catches the eye, or something pops up that catches the eye, something really has to catch, because if not, they're just, I'm off to the next video without even thinking of the rest, you know? Yeah, so that's the art, because once I start talking, I can tell a lot of stories, but what makes the, my most successful videos, the most successful is that I figured out the hook, I like, knew the way in, and it played my cards right, but that is, it's not easy to do. No, not easy to do at all, like, and when you start to look at some of your videos, like, you start to look and you're like, I've got some good views on here, like, there's, you know, your average, I'm looking at them now, and your average, you're like averaging at least, you know, in the thousands, sometimes multiple thousands, like, I mean, looking at 45, you know, 16, 70, and everyone, so while you just start 2.5 million, you know, you have won the 7.2 million, you know, it's insane to think about how people, like, how many people are watching these videos. I can't even believe, and you know, the funny thing is, and I tell this to my friends all time, I've now, I'm now, like, whatever a published author, I have, like, a couple first author papers for my PhD, no one is going to read my dissertation cover to cover other than me, but millions of people will watch my TikTok, like, and for, for all the academics that are hesitant with science communication, like, okay, I understand, it's hard teaching old dog new tricks, but, like, I'm going to get maybe a thousand eyes on my best paper at the end of the year, maybe, if it blows up, but I just, like, talk to 4 million people about Atlantic Muriel overturning circulation, which, like, I never in my wildest dreams would have thought, and I think also the cool thing about it, too, that I definitely don't take for granted is that it's reaching so many people that do not know about the ocean. Like, it's so easy to forget, I grew up in Southern California, I've always loved the ocean, I'm in a scientific family, but most of our world, most of the United States does not live. I mean, well, there's statistics about most of the world, it's like 30% of the world population lives on a coastline, but, you know, but most of us do not know the ocean, though. Yeah, exactly, with the educational background, and I think a lot of scientists assume higher knowledge, or, like, they've been in their bubble for so long, even when it comes to, like, climate change communication, like, obviously, it affects everybody, but let's not forget. A lot of people, first of all, haven't been in school for a long time, so you're trying to tell them about Earth's, like, retaining its long-wave radiation, stop right there. Yeah. You lost 95% of the population when you said that. So when I see, like, these views on my videos, I'm like, "Oh, this is so cool." And my goal, too, is not just to, like, have people, like, obviously it's great to have people watch, and people, like, ocean people will continue to drink the Kool-Aid, but what really gets me is when people are, like, not ocean people. You know, they grew up, they're, like, in Indiana, or they're some landlocked country, and they're like, "This is so interesting, I never knew this about the ocean." Yeah. That, to me, is, like, that's really cool, because I could, yeah, I could, the people that drink the Kool-Aid drink the Kool-Aid, and that's great, but that's the crazy thing about TikTok, that's, like, I could reach a random person in a random country that just learned something about the ocean, and maybe that sparked a little something in them to just be more vigilant of their climate, their environment, the ocean around them. I'm like, "That's the coolest for me." And it is. It's really interesting, especially, like, it's an opportunity for education, but, again, you do it in a very entertaining way. You know, you feel, I feel good after I listen to these episodes. You know, like, that's... And I know, like, you're like, "Oh, that's why I want people to do." But, you know, when you talk about oceans a lot of the times, there's a lot of doom and gloom when we talk about oceans. Right? Like, you know, even you see these big documentaries that have been, you know, Emmy award-winning documentaries. There's a lot of doom and gloom. I mean, I think David Attenborough had the world crying when he put out Blue Planet 2 and that poor sperm whale cap was died of plastic pollution, like, right in front of everybody. Yeah. And we were all like, "What the hell, David?" Like, "What are you doing to us?" Yeah. And... But, like, when you are able to connect things that are interesting to people, like, we were talking about this before we press record. I was just watching your video on the Resolute Desk, you know, in the White House. Never would have thought that had an ocean connection to it, right? Yeah. And it's not directly with the ocean, but it's an important part of history, not only American history, but Canadian history of people trying to find that Northwest Passage. And you look at your map fix in there, and you talk about different maps, and you have those. I think it's really good. I think what you're able to do, and this is what Randy Olson has been talking about for years. He's a big science communication guy, like, in marine science, and it's all about getting people's emotions involved. You know, getting... Yeah. Not just necessarily the bad emotions, like the sad emotions, but getting the curiosity emotion. Yeah. You know, you've got some good humor in there, too. You've got some funny bits that you do as well. But it's really great that you're able to communicate that, and it's not just straight up facts. It's... Here's facts in an interesting way. Did you ever think about this, or did you know about this? And I've seen some creators do that, too. There's another creator who does a lot about the World Wars and, like, historical wars, and he has this way of, like, really getting into it, and he always starts, "Did you know about this? And did you know about it?" It's just like, and people are like, "Oh, this is really, really interesting." Yeah. Yeah. It's cool to do that kind of stuff, but there's a lot of work involved in putting these videos together. You can't do this in, like, five minutes. Give me an average. I know it probably varies, but getting out of how long do you spend with these videos? Is this a scripted video? Yeah. So... This is a great question. So I'll take you through a whole process, because now I have, like, a whole way of doing it. I will either think of a question or someone will ask me a question. For example, like, when you're already on all overturning a circulation, someone will be like, "What the heck is that?" So I'll think of a question or someone will ask a question in the comments. I had a really popular one about what is the bottom of the C4, like, how deep is the sand, and I was like, "Oh, actually, it's not sand, it's dead organic matter." So I'll think of a question, and then I'll put together, like, the key. I'll break it down in terms of, like, what science, what physics and chemistry does a person need to know to appreciate how complex this is? Maybe they need to know about how organic matter decomposes. Maybe they need to know about how there's no light in the ocean. So I think about, like, what are all the key facts that go into truly understanding this? I have to find some decent figures that doesn't take too long, but I'll make one sheet that has all the pictures that I would like to show, and I'll just screenshot all the pictures, and then I think about how am I going to say this, but what takes a long time is thinking of the hook, for sure. Yeah, and then forming it never takes more than 30 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes. I will say, like, I have a huge depth of prior knowledge, so there's very little that I really need to research when it comes to true science questions. I do love maritime history and naval history, and I think it's ocean exploration. I think that's a really important and cool way to bring people into oceanography is to, like, help us all appreciate how little we know about the ocean, how long we have tried to learn about it. So those take a little bit more time, but I, like, I live and breathe, like, I just finished a book about cod, I'm now reading a book about how the US government in the Cold War invested billions in oceanography, I'm always reading things about the oceans to, like, build up the knowledge base and to find, like, oh, I should tell people about this. So from start to finish, I'll have a couple ideas brewing for a couple weeks at a time, but truthfully, the best ideas and the best videos do come to me in a flash where I'm like, oh, I need to tell the story right now. For example, I've always been fascinated with how Robert Ballard found the Titanic. Such a cool story. Most people don't know that he was, like, actually looking for remnants of nuclear submarines that had been lost in Cold War. I think that's such a cool story. It wasn't in my head, but then, like, I didn't know how to, like, bring people into that. And it was the day before Thanksgiving, and I was with my boyfriend's family, and they're asking me all these, like, great questions about oceanography and stuff. And then it just came to me. I was like, oh, I should just, like, do this dumb hook where I say that you should talk about this at Thanksgiving. Like, I was like, this is what you're going to talk about this Thanksgiving, and that video got, like, three million views, because we were like, what? And then I'm like, the Titanic sink, right? And so, like, yeah, but cover to cover, it'll, you know, take anywhere between, like, if it's a brilliant flash, it'll take an hour, if it's marinating or no longer, it'll take a couple weeks. Yeah. And I can just imagine that Thanksgiving one, just like, so, you know, the Titanic sank. Did you guys know this? Like, and then I'll go through the story. That's, I feel like that's one of the things that you're just like, that comes out of nowhere. Like, why would people want it? Oh, okay. This is interesting. Yeah. I'll, I'll stay in a little bit of this. Because if I started, if I started my videos being like, let me tell you the history of the discovery of the Titanic, like, I'm going to keep the history nerds, but that's it. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. How am I going to swing this around? Um, yeah. And do so in an exciting way too. Getting back to your point about, like, my attitude and my videos, I think I find the gloom and doom, although, like, definitely warranted sometimes, right? Yes. Like, it is heavy stuff and it's like concerning things. I, I think about this a lot, which is that it's not fear, to a certain degree, is not a good motivational tool. No. Great. And I, so when I was just at the second year of my PhD, the first year of my PhD, I took a class that was really interesting, it was a graduate level class on how true leaders in the environmental or sustainability movements have, like, how do they do a good job? Because from a marketing standpoint, climate change got off on a bad foot. It didn't. Yeah. And the analogy was compared to, like, the space race. Let's think about the space race for a second. That motivated all of America, like, the public approval of spending billions of dollars to send Amanda space, which, like, I'm a huge fan. Was unheard of. And it was unheard of at that point. Like, it was like, can we really do this? Yeah. We're going to do this. We're going to be first. And I was like, yeah, this is a crazy scientific challenge to just, and public approval widespread. Now, I think about that all the time, like, getting people excited is not for nothing. And even, you know, I could paint all of my stuff in a way, scare your light. And even still some people sometimes are like, why are you smiling when you, like, say all those heavy stuff? But I do think it's like, well, I don't want to, I don't think freaking people out is the answer. I think getting people to appreciate, like, well, this is a huge challenge. And, like, no, this is a big problem. But also here's why the complexities of this are so interesting. And maybe that inspires you to just learn more. I think learning is like the start of actually making change happen. Yeah. But, yeah, I mean, you can't market everything in a positive light. I'm not saying like the positive thing. It's not fun like the space race, but I do go back to that all the time when I'm making my content. I'm like, how do I talk about something that's, like, a little bit feel like a meriano overturning circulation? That's scary. Yeah. That'll be really freaky if that shut down. But instead of, like, saying that, I'm going to say this is a really interesting, complex phenomenon that goes on in our climate, and you should know what it does instead of, you know, if you want to get fearful that somebody's thing is going to stop and the world is getting into the end. Yes. Yes. Yes. Because I feel like that kind of communication has only gotten more polarized as with everything, right, where it's like, I can't believe you don't care about this. This is so bad. And then the other side being like, you know, this isn't our fault. Why are you saying the world is an ending? I'm like, how do we lower the volume? Yeah. I'd be like, talk about why this is interesting. People can draw their own conclusions and like, take that where they want to take it. For sure. You know, and especially if you're just educating, here's the process. Here's how it works. Yeah. You know, and here's what people are saying. It's slowing down and what, what that means. And then you can just just explain it a little bit more instead of, I mean, that headline was fearful. I remember that headline coming. It wasn't only on CNN. It was all over the place. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that headline seems to come up every once in a while. Like, it's like a recurring story that every time a study comes out, they're like, let's swipe this up. Let's go ahead and crop everybody, like, which, again, it's like, you know, and part of it too is like, you can't, I don't believe scientists can be frustrated at people for not having the correct amount of empathy for a problem if they didn't educate people in the first place. Right. You know, you need to meet people in the middle. Yeah. And if you're not going to, then I don't think you have a right to be so frustrated because not everyone got a PhD in climate science, you know, so you need to like meet somewhere in the middle. And I think the education is first step. So it's, I so enjoy being here at this point where I can like help with that. Well, I'll tell you, we love it. We're going to, I'm going to say that from your audience as a representative, from your audience, not that I represent your audience loves it. And then you can tell just by the views and the consistent views that you're getting and the increased views that you're getting on a regular basis, it's just absolutely wonderful to watch you work, to be able to, to, you know, talk about science in the way that you do. It's so much fun. Like I said, I'm a huge, huge fan and like just hearing your PhD and hearing the enthusiasm that you have for science in general and science for eutrophication and sort of closer eutrophication. So I'm looking forward to seeing what you're able to do and what you're going to be able to do with the next job that you have. So you know, you just finished your PhD like three months ago, which congratulations by the way. Thank you. Thank you. And so I'm going to ask the, the, the fun questions like now that you've grown up. What do you want to be? I know that's such a crazy question. I think about this every day. I know for a fact that I think my, my skills, you know, most people that know me personally, they're like, so you're going to be a professor, right? I'm like, oh, so you're going to teach for the rest of your life, which I mean, in a perfect world. And I could just make interesting TikToks like I'd be so happy doing that. But as of right now, it doesn't really pay bills. And I do want to put my efforts to work on a specific project. So for example, I've been really interested in offshore wind, really interested in offshore wind. I think that is the direction energy is critical to everybody. We will run off fossil fuel. How do we find a good way to use the ocean as an energy resource without like causing any detrimental impacts, I am so fascinated with that. So, for example, like an ideal job I applied for a couple months ago was offshore wind environmental expert. Like I would love to help, you know, site offshore wind farms. I'd love to help you there for the full process and understand the oceanography, understand the atmospheric, you know, relationship, even the spatial analysis of how to locate them. Yeah. Yes, exactly. So far, can you be from shore? Will the other turbines interact with it? With each other? Do they interact with a sort of marine life or birthing? Yeah. Other ocean users. Yeah, for sure. Exactly. I don't want to interact with fishing. So those questions fascinate me. I'd love to do something like that. Yeah. That's where my aim is right now. So currently I'm living in Boulder, Colorado. I moved out to Boulder. I love Colorado. Beautiful place. Beautiful place. I loved Southern California, but I've spent pretty much my entire life there. I grew up there. I went to UCSB, went to UCLA, I've lived in San Diego, and I just wanted to see something new. Boulder, Colorado has the National Renewable Energy Lab, which is the Department of Energy, the U.S. Department of Energy. That's their primary renewable energy research facility. So that is out here. That's honestly my top choice. I would love, love, love to work there. There was a big NOAA office here, the Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. I'm already in the process for interviewing for one of a job there. There's the National Center for Atmospheric Research, yeah, crossing my fingers. So it's kind of surprising. A lot of people are like, "Why are you in Colorado and an oceanographer?" There's actually a shocking amount of atmospheric and oceanic science that goes on out here. Yeah. And I was just going to say, there's like a big ocean proponent there. Like just in terms of the people, it's very similar to California, where there's a lot of people who are nature focused, you know, Rockies, hiking, that kind of stuff. But also, there are a lot of ocean advocates in Colorado. So you're not alone in terms of that. Your level of oceanography knowledge might be almost at the top in terms of a little unique. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I mean, I tell them coastal oceanography, but I don't mind, yeah, but you know, in my perfect world, I'd also do a lot of science communication and it's been really fun, at least these last like two months, to like give it all the time I can. But at the same time, I know, I think it'll naturally grow over time. I'm at this interesting point, though, where I'm like, "Well, do I grow it more?" And like, "How much do I grow it?" And I know there's an audience for it, you know, another like pipe dream or like offshoot life. I would love to like have an ocean show someday on TV or be like a talking head for discovery or, you know, I'd love to continue to like educate people about the ocean on a broader scale. And I do like similar to my PhD, I'm like, "I know that'll come." I know I can make it there. Yeah, yeah. Yes. Exactly. And manifesting it. But in the meantime, I don't think I have the traps to do only science communication, to be self-employed, I, a PhD is like being self-employed and I'm frankly a little bit tired of it. Yeah. Hey, I get it. That's a, it's, it's, it's a long process. It could be a traumatic process when looking at all the stuff that you have to do. A lot of people say it's basically working two jobs and one maybe even plus that, like even, you know, it's, it's a, it's a lot to handle for anybody. And you did that plus you developed a science communication channel that is blowing up and it continues to blow up. And I'm looking forward to seeing what you're up to next. Like it's going to be a fingers crossed for all the opportunities that you're involved with now and hopefully continues and hopefully, you know, your, your enthusiasm for the science communication continues as well because it's, it's been a pleasure to watch those videos. I enjoy it. Thank you. And I'm sure the seven million people that watch your videos also enjoy. Thank you. Yes. I don't, if, if anything, that is the last to fade for sure. Yeah. I hope. Yeah. I think so. I think that's what it sounds like. It's a pleasure to have you on the podcast and to get to know you more and look forward to having you back on when you get, you know, and once you get that job or once you develop the, the science more and the science communication more, you know, why don't you let people know how they can get ahold of you. There's the TikTok, right? Which you just like let them know the handle and how they can look you up. Yeah. The handle for the TikTok is little L-I-L ocean page, or you could look up PhD pagey. And I also have an Instagram that is the same handle, L-I-L ocean page. And I'm starting to put my videos on YouTube shorts. So you can find me there and who knows, maybe I'll get bored and like actually start making long form YouTube videos someday. I'm not sure if I'll ever do that, but part of you wants to know who knows your holds. Yeah. Love it. Love it. I can see like story time with page ocean story time. Oh, I would love to do that. I know it's my dream, that's my dream. Well, Paige, it's been a pleasure. We're looking forward to seeing what you're up to next. And thank you so much. I'd love to have you back on. Thank you so much, Andrew. It's been a pleasure. Thank you, Paige, for joining us today on How to Protect the Ocean Podcast to talk about not only your PhD work, but your science communication work. I think it's really important for scientists to have both sort of that skill set using the skills that they have, using their personality to bring out the messaging that they want to bring out. That's something that that page does. So again, her handle is at Lil Ocean Page, so L-I-L Ocean Page P-A-I-G-E, obviously all one word. You can go on TikTok. You can also go on Instagram to follow her. I highly suggest that you do. She's going to be up some pretty incredible things through her career. It's just, she's just scratching the surface literally just dipping a toe in and I can't wait till she dives in and we get to hear all about it. So, if you have any questions or comments about this episode, please feel free to leave a comment on, if you're watching this on Spotify, on the video, or if you're just listening to it, you can leave comments. You can also leave a comment on the YouTube video and you can get a hold of me on Instagram at How to Protect the Ocean. That's at How to Protect the Ocean on Instagram. Just DM me. I'd love to hear your feedback on this episode and any other episode of the podcast. Feel free to reach out. We talked about it in the podcast. People just don't feel like they feel weird about reaching out. Page reached out to me. She got on the podcast and that's something that I didn't do and reach out to her first. I keep myself for doing that because I should be reaching out to more people to have them on the podcast. But I appreciate Page reaching out and I would love to hear from you whether you want to be on the podcast or not because you've got something interesting that you think is interesting or you just want to give feedback or talk about the ocean. This is where we start that conversation and we did a great job doing it today. I want to hear from you what you think about the ocean and what you would like to hear more about or what you would like to talk about hit me up at How to Protect the Ocean on Instagram. Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time. Of course, my name is Andrew Lohan. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.
