On July 10, 2024, Molly Graham interviewed Juliana Blackwell for the NOAA Heritage Oral History project. Juliana P. Blackwell was the Director of NOAA's National Geodetic Survey (NGS), where she oversaw the financial, administrative, and programmatic performance of NGS, including the management of the National Spatial Reference System (NSRS). During her tenure, she held key leadership roles in geodetic surveying and positioning activities across the United States and served on several federal committees related to geodetic and hydrographic services.

Kamealoha Smith is a prominent figure in the Hawaiian community, known for his deep understanding and respect for the traditional Hawaiian resource management system, the moku system. Smith's work revolves around the preservation and application of this ancestral system, which involves the careful management of natural resources by different chiefs under the main chief of the island. He is also a strong advocate for the concept of "kuliana," a Hawaiian term meaning responsibility, which he believes is a reflection of how Native Hawaiian people feel towards the land.

Ku‘ulei has been working at the Hawai’i Institute of Marine Biology’s Coral Reef Ecology Lab since 1992 under the direction of Drs. Paul Jokiel and Fenny Cox, as an HIMB faculty member since 2005 and as the Principal Investigator of the Coral Reef Ecology Lab since 2016. Over 100 articles have been published in peer-reviewed journals, published reports, and conference proceedings. She was in the top five most read PeerJ journal articles in 2017.

LaToya earned her Ph.D. through the NOAA Environmental Cooperative Science Center at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee. She conducted research in collaboration with the NOAA Air Resources Laboratory for an interdisciplinary dissertation focusing on atmospheric deposition of pollutants and their impact on ecosystems. Her study had implications for both human and environmental health.

Laura Jay Grove is a research fishery biologist at the National Marine Fisheries Service’s Southeast Fisheries Science Center (SEFSC) in Miami. Jay received her B.S. in marine biology from the University of New Hampshire, M.S. in marine science from the University of New England and Ph.D. in fisheries from Auburn University. She joined NOAA in 2016 and is presently the Coral Reef Conservation Program’s National Coral Reef Monitoring Program’s (NCRMP) SEFSC lead. In this role, she is the lead fish data scientist ensuring high quality data collection and analysis.

Laurel Bryant was born in Mount Vernon, Washington, and raised in Seattle.  She attended Shoreline Community College for two years and then graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in Political Science and Economics with a concentration in Environmental Sciences.  She came to Washington, DC, in 1989 and worked for the United States House of Representatives Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee, the predecessor to the House Natural Resources Committee.

Mrs. Linda Lawhorn-Brown was born in Winnsboro, South Carolina in 1958.  She moved to Washington, D.C. while she was in high school, and after graduation, attended the University of Maryland- College Park, where she majored in special education.  In 1987, Linda came to work for NOAA.  Her first position was with Bill Stanley, who served eventually as NOAA's historian.  Since 1990, Linda has worked in the Office of the Under Secretary, working closely with various administrators, dignitaries, and NOAA staff.  

Scope and Content Note

On October 15, 2020, Zachary Mason interviewed Lisa Carroll for the Decades of Change in the Florida Reef Tract: An Oral History Project. Lisa Carroll, a resident of Tequesta, Florida, is the owner and operator of the Jupiter Dive Center in Jupiter, Florida. The dive center offers charter boat services, diving instruction, equipment rentals, and retail sales, and is known for its role in the local diving community. The interview begins with Carroll's biographical background, detailing her early years in New Jersey and her passion for the ocean, which led her to Florida in 1995.

Dr. Lixion Avila is a renowned meteorologist who has made significant contributions to the field of weather forecasting. Born on November 25, 1950, in Havana, Cuba, Avila grew up in an American church, celebrating holidays like Thanksgiving. His family history traces back to Spain on his father's side and Eastern Europe on his mother's side. Avila's father held various jobs, one of which was a cowboy, transporting cattle from Central Cuba to Havana. Growing up in the Caribbean, he encountered and became fascinated with tropical storms.

Ms. Louisa Koch was born in Boston in 1959 and raised in Brookline, Massachusetts.  She attended Middlebury College in Vermont and graduated with a degree in Physics in 1982.  After working as a consultant for Booz Allen and Hamilton and a researcher for the National Academy of Sciences, Louisa went on to earn her master's degree in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1987. She started her career in Washington working for the Joint Economic Committee of the US Congress as a staff economist.