In 2022, I had several students graduate in yet another covid-tainted year. Elle Gilchrist finished her Master’s thesis, and Camden Hunt, Natasha Diamstone-Kohout, and Molly Tucker all made it across the stage in June. Below are their bios from their student days:
Elle Gilchrist.
I grew up on the dunes and tide pools of Connecticut. I’d like to think that all that splashing and turning over rocks cultivated a curiosity in me for ecology and my place in it. In Connecticut, I worked as park ranger for many years, which exposed me to the realm of human interaction within the environment. I became fascinated with how and why we engage with nature. I did my undergraduate work in Marine Biology at Unity College and discovered a deep love of the Maine coast. I love reading, baking bread, and making baskets when I am not fumbling my way over rocks and seaweed. In the last few years, I have spent a good chunk of time in Peru, Chile and Mexico learning to make good conversation and eating delicious food. At COA, I am exploring what influences us to act pro-environmentally and how communities can foster marine conservation for a healthier happier ocean. Elle completed a second field season in a small coastal Mexico fishing community and finished her thesis in May 2022.
Natasha Diamondstone-Kohout.
As a young girl, my summers were spent running barefoot through the grass, swimming with my father in the river below our home, and painting pictures of the magical realm where my mind dwelt. I haven’t changed all that much, except I now have an unyielding desire to heal the world around me, to make some difference for the better. The question that faces me is: how do I do this?
I have been teaching wilderness skills and mindful living to children for the last five years through Oyase Wilderness School, Otter Day Camp, Kroka Expeditions and Wolf Tree. The winter, spring, summer, and fall find me in the woods showing children how to create a coal with a bow drill, how to track turkeys or how to close your eyes and listen to the woodland creatures move about you. I believe this union with the earth is essential to creating a healthier world. My own wilderness education “peeked” as I climbed a 19,000ft Andian glacier after a four-month expedition through Ecuador in my gap year.
Art of all kinds continues to captivate and nourish me. I was commissioned to illustrate Pathways-The Ontario Journal of Outdoor Education, have had multiple art exhibitions, and sell prints and originals independently (along with designing logo’s for local businesses, and tattoos). I hope to combine, Anthropology, Art, Spirituality, and Environmental Education, we shall see where that leads me… – Graduated April 2022
Camden Hunt. I am from Newport News, Virginia, a shipbuilding city on the Chesapeake Bay. At a very young age, I found myself entrenched in passion for both art and biology, intersecting at marine creatures. Since then, I’ve had the chance to explore a variety of marine topics, research them, and produce work related to them; I have a collection of poems in the McCurdy’s Smokehouse Museum, multiple pieces on Downeast Fisheries Trail, an essay on rockweed on the Marine Studies at COA blog, and a radio show on Coastal Conversations (that has sparked many conversations that go as follows: “Oh! You’re the sardine man!”). I am currently working on an exhibit in Jonesport, and look forward to much more work communicating the culture and history of the ocean.
Molly Tucker.
Once upon a time, I thought the oil rigs out on the horizon in the Gulf of Mexico were heroes on seahorses riding off into the deep to protect the ocean (spoiler alert: I was correct! jk). Sadly, I can’t ride a seahorse into the sunset and magically conserve whale populations and create tons of krill and copepods, but I’m so trying. How? Great question, and please lmk if you have any suggestions. I’m currently interested in intersections between human behavior and marine mammals (esp industry), how the heck barnacles find whales to live on, the minutia of what makes a species vs a subspecies vs a population, cetacean acoustics, and ocean-science-art-education outreach for children.
Chris Petersen's faculty web site 