I grew up in Redondo Beach in Southern California, where I first started diving along the local coastlines—Catalina Island, Palos Verdes, and Veterans Park were some of my earliest underwater playgrounds.

I later moved to the East Coast to play college volleyball, starting at Campbell University before transferring to LSU. After college, I settled in South Carolina, where I now work as a naturalist and environmental educator in the Lowcountry.

My passion for the ocean has taken me beyond the U.S. as well. I earned my Divemaster certification in Quepos, Costa Rica, where I worked with a dive shop focused on coral reef conservation. While there, I assisted with coral propagation, outplanting, reef monitoring, and citizen science projects, helping support hands-on conservation efforts in the field.