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Rusty Day is the founding director of MANTA and President of the program’s operations. Mr. Day was raised in a seafaring family from the southern Outer Banks of North Carolina where Blackbeard called his home. He grew up on boats, with a love of the ocean and an inquisitive nature, making the decision to pursue marine biology quite natural. He went on to earn his BS in Biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and then decided to take his passion for exploration and adventure on the road and to sea, traveling and sailing his way through the culture of Europe and the natural beauty of the Caribbean. |
Rusty returned to earn his Masters in Marine Biology at the College of Charleston Grice Marine Lab. He has worked as a marine scientist at several state and federal government and university labs, and has a wide diversity of expertise including marine ecology, fisheries biology, conservation biology, environmental and analytical chemistry, and aquatic pollution and toxicology. This experience ranges from sampling using shrimp trawls and gill nets, to conducting underwater ecological research using SCUBA diving, or even using lasers to unlock chemical information to reveal fish migration routes. He has also worked as an instructor with several marine education and outreach programs working with students ranging in age from elementary school to college. This experience has included working for both non-profit and for-profit companies from Charleston, South Carolina all the way to the British Virgin Islands. He is currently a Research Biologist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and holds an appointment as Adjunct Professor at the College of Charleston Grice Marine Laboratory. Mr. Day has teaching experience at the university level, and currently serves as mentor and committee advisor for undergraduate and graduate students, providing hands-on guidance and training in marine science research and learning the tools needed to become a professional scientist. He has received several awards both nationally and internationally for his research on sea turtles and has more than ten scientific publications in top journals. In addition to Mr. Day’s scientific accomplishments, he has also been awarded the level of Master Officer in the Merchant Marines for vessel up to 50 gross tons by the U.S. Coast Guard, and has logged over 1000 miles under sail in 7 different nations. Rusty has also attained the certification level of Open Water Scuba Instructor by the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI). If you can’t find him working or playing on the water, then chances are he’s off traveling, adding to the over 30 countries he has already explored. Overall Mr. Day presents a unique and diverse combination of qualifications and experiences that are ideal for the mission of education and research endorsed by MANTA. |
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Raised in Indiana, Jenn Keller, was landlocked during her early years, but when she turned 14, her dad signed her up for SCUBA lessons and the rest is history... She surfaced after her first open ocean dive in the Florida Keys and exclaimed, “I want to study and experience marine biology every day of my life!” More than ten Caribbean diving/sailing experiences set her unwavering pursuit into a career in marine biology. During college, where she earned a Bachelor of Science in Biology with a minor in Environmental Studies at Indiana University, she honed her career goals. Through a teaching internship, she discovered great enjoyment in and a talent for teaching biology. |
Moreover, her excitement for scientific research grew during three independent research projects, one of which landed her at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution for a summer. All three projects were focused on toxicology, the study of chemical effects on plants or animals, which steered her towards a Ph.D. in Marine Environmental Toxicology at Duke University. To accomplish her ambitious research goals at Duke, she initiated and organized a collaboration among the Duke Marine Laboratory, National Marine Fisheries Service, and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to measure man-made contaminants and their health effects in sea turtles. Her passion for these endangered marine creatures motivated her through this six-year project. Dr. Keller continues to measure contaminants in marine animals as a full-time Research Biologist for NIST in Charleston, SC, and has published more than fifteen scientific papers and book chapters. She is also an Adjunct Professor at the College of Charleston’s Grice Marine Laboratory, where she supervises several graduate students and has taught an Aquatic Toxicology course. In all of these accomplishments, she gives credit to those that inspired her at a young age, including her dad, but also Alex Girdley, her high school Earth Science teacher. He gave her and 11 other high schoolers a life-changing experience by taking them on a two-week, summer fieldtrip to visit and learn in several western U.S. national parks. Mr. Girdley’s easy-going, positively genuine spirit made learning fun and he truly sparked Jenn’s passion for science and teaching. Dr. Keller strives to live up to Mr. Girdley’s example by passing on his fascination for the natural world. As the Vice President of MANTA, she is enthusiastically committed to hands-on (or better yet “flippers-on”) experiences that can teach students why the ocean and marine critters are so amazing and important. In her free-time, Jenn enjoys traveling, boating with her family, yellow lab and friends, photography, and body boarding at Folly Beach. |
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