For BOEM oceanographer Mary Boatman, science is an adventure that never stops.
“Growing up in Minnesota, no one expected me to venture out the door and become an oceanographer,” she said. “Like many of my marine cohorts, I watched Jacques Cousteau documentaries and became attracted to the mysteries of the ocean.”
When it came to a decision about what to study and where, Boatman was determined to become a marine scientist as an undergraduate in college. She said that, at the time, this was unusual.
“You were supposed to major in a science like biology or chemistry, but I knew what I wanted to do and found a new program at Texas A&M University, where I got my undergraduate degree,” she said. It did not end there academically. She went on to pursue a Master’s degree in oceanography at Texas A&M. She started her graduate career by flying to Hawaii and boarding the RV Gyre,a180 foot research vessel operated by the university, to begin a two-month journey that included visits to Papeete, Tahiti and Hiva Oa in the Marqueses Islands. She assisted with the collection of sediment cores from water depths exceeding 5 km. The cores were analyzed for radioisotopes like plutonium and lead.
“Crossing the equator was a big adventure that included surviving rituals with my fellow Pollywogs like dancing on the deck wearing mask and fins to appease Neptune” Boatman said. “I had arrived!”
She continued to sail the seas collecting sediment and water samples to study the trace components and tell the story of the evolution of the planet’s surface. After earning her Master’s degree, she moved to California and worked at the California Institute of Technology, continuing her adventures transiting the central Atlantic Ocean for two months between Brazil and Senegal and back again.
She talked about career highlights like watching polar bears swim up to a boat in the Davis Straits and spending off-duty time dancing at the Top of the World club in Thule, Greenland. Boatman once took a boat in Spitsbergen and went all the way to 83 degrees north on the Polarstern, collecting water samples along the way.
She took a short break from school and worked as an analytical chemist measuring water and sediment samples for chemicals like PCBs and lead. But the call of the sea brought her back to school, again at Texas A&M, where she stayed closer to home, canoeing to sampling sites in Canada at the Experimental Lakes Area and riding airboats in the Florida Everglades. She was studying mercury in the environment and received her Ph.D.
Boatman started her career at BOEM as an oceanographer working in the Gulf of Mexico Region. She been a contracting officer’s representative on over 30 environmental studies and helped in the preparation of NEPA documents. Currently, she works in the Office of Renewable Energy Programs, coordinating the science activities along the Atlantic in support of offshore wind.
“Now at BOEM, I live vicariously through the studies we fund. But I did get one great adventure in my current role -- visiting the ocean depths on the Johnson Sea Link with colleagues.”