Sarah Fangman is superintendent of Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, overseeing management and operations of a protected area covering 2,900 square nautical miles. She was appointed to the position in July 2017 after serving as superintendent of Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary, Georgia. She has been with the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries since 1998, after serving as a US Presidential Management Fellow with NOAA Fisheries in the Northwest and the Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program in Washington, D.C.

As a marine scientist, Fangman was the science coordinator at Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary in California before becoming program coordinator for the sanctuary system’s Southeast, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean region. In that capacity, Fangman worked extensively in the Florida Keys conducting more than 400 science dives. Fangman was twice a saturation diver at the Aquarius Reef Base, an underwater research laboratory located off Key Largo. She also served as diver and divemaster on multiple research missions in the Keys aboard the NOAA Ship Nancy Foster. Fangman helped draft the 2011 Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary Condition Report that prompted the first comprehensive management review since the sanctuary’s designation in 1990.