I founded Waterlust in 2011 without much of a plan. As a PhD student at the time, I was seeing a lot of fascinating research being done by intelligent and passionate investigators. But what I wasn’t seeing, was that work and positive energy reaching a broad audience in creative and impactful ways. So that’s what we set out to do. Our early work focused on producing and disseminating digital media, but soon we realized that even the most stunning photo or well-crafted film was too fleeting an experience to make a lasting impression. We needed to wrap environmental knowledge and scientific wisdom into something that would touch people’s lives again and again, and our solution was clothing! We called the concept “advocate apparel” and over time Waterlust evolved into what it is today. As CEO, I focus mostly on working with our talented and highly interdisciplinary team to keep the bow pointed at the mark, so to speak. While we are a business, our team considers the pursuit of profit a necessary evil rather than a reason for existing. Much of what we do each day, or perhaps more accurately, what we don’t do, is a mindful reflection of this ideal. My specific responsibilities include overseeing our marketing and advertising efforts, financial planning and cash flow management, working directly with our science partners to ensure the messaging of their work is clearly reaching our customers, and from time to time pitching in with customer service or packaging up orders.

I study the hydrodynamics of the near shore environment with specific focus on the exchange of inshore water with seawater through tidal inlets. I am lucky to work with fantastic colleagues from institutions around the world on targeted field campaigns and supplement these campaigns with numerical modelling. My PhD is funded by the National Defense Science and Engineering Fellowship through the Department of Defense and through research grants from the Office of Naval Research.

I coordinate the media efforts of the national team riders (U.S) for the best kitesurfing brand in the world. My responsibilities include providing critical feedback, technical assistance, and general guidance to athletes and helping them be more effective ambassadors of the sport. I also work directly with our international marketing team to provide an integrated online presence.

I designed and developed autonomous surface vehicles (ASV) for oceanographic applications. During this time I led a team of undergraduate students in designing, building, and testing a wind-powered ASV. This work was the topic of my Masters thesis in Ocean Engineering. I also co-founded a robotics team at FAU with a talented group of graduate students. We designed and built two ASV's that utilized a vision-based navigation system. These vehicles earned several awards from the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International and the Office of Naval Research.

I worked in the Deep Submergence Laboratory under Dr. Hanu Singh. My responsibilities consisted of assisting in system integration and field testing of the SEAbed class of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles.