Natalie will be our official representative for STEMFest and doing social media takeovers and will be sharing all the plans and exciting news in the build up to STEMFest in October.
Natalie is a marine biologist, doing a PhD on marine ecology and is a Doctoral Assistant at the University of Waikato. Originally from Germany she had the opportunity to travel the world with a dad working on cruise ships. It is how her passion for the ocean and for the world and especially its people started.
After finishing school and working on ships for a year she wanted to follow her dream to become a Marine Scientist.
She moved to Perth, Australia where she graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Marine Science. Natalie spent a year working in science and tourism in north WA and eventually went back to Germany to do an International Masters Degree in Tropical Marine Ecology. This degree took her to the Cook Islands where she investigated the impact of fish feeding on coral reef fish by tourists. At the end of her project she wrote an article that was published in the Cook Island News and was awarded the University of Bremen Campus Prize in Germany. In 2019/2020 she became the All Atlantic Youth Ambassador for Germany and later on, she was part of the founding member team for the Youth4Ocean Forum.
Natalie has had so many amazing opportunities to work alongside researchers on an Arctic expedition vessel, at a University in Iceland, in Saudi Arabia or with scientific diving in Italy.
When STEM Wana Trust offered her to be 2021 STEMFest Ambassador her reaction was a huge smile and a lot of excitement to share and communicate about what she loves the most, Marine Biology with our whānau.
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