The Human Element

When Ashleigh Palinkas teaches fishing safety courses in San Diego, she talks about impalements from tuna hooks and heat stroke. When she teaches 800 miles north, in Eureka, she switches to crushing injuries from crab traps and hypothermia. Same life-saving skills, different examples.

"When I run students through drills, I cater to injuries that would be more likely to happen based on what they're actually fishing for," says Palinkas, a marine research associate with California Sea Grant at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Paying attention to cultural details is something that Palinkas picked up during a former professional stage — when she studied to be an anthropologist — but it’s proven handy in her current work, too.  

"Fishing tends to be a very cultural endeavour,” says Palinkas. “It's really common for it to be multi-generational, and it's just a way of life." The realities of that life vary as much as California's coastal communities: San Diego's tourism-focused waterfront supports a small commercial fleet targeting warm and temperate-water species, while Northern California port town Eureka's economy revolves around working waterfronts with larger fleets pursuing crabs, salmon and halibut.

From Conch Fishers to Kelp Forests

Understanding such differences has been a key to the success of Palinkas’ fishing safety classes. What started two years ago as a course with just three students has sparked statewide demand. She recently traveled throughout California teaching safety courses — from Eureka in the north to San Diego in the south — that are critically needed in an industry where workers die at rates 23 times higher than most jobs "I rarely meet a fisher person who doesn't have somebody close to them that was either lost at sea or really injured," Palinkas says. 

Her professional switch from social to marine science came when she was backpacking through Central America after finishing her undergraduate degree in cultural anthropology at Fordham University in New York. In Honduras, she stumbled across a sign outside a research station: "Anthropologist Wanted." 

The job involved working with local fishermen whose conch fishery was collapsing because of overfishing. “They wanted somebody who could work with the fishermen to find a compromise where they could practice more sustainable fishing without losing the cultural value of the fishery,” she remembers.

While Palinkas enjoyed working with the fishermen, she also found herself wondering why the conch population was collapsing and what biological factors contributed to it. After more backpacking, she returned to her hometown, San Diego, to pursue a graduate degree in marine science.

Social Science Meets Marine Research

But still, her anthropological lens proves valuable in almost every part of her work. When writing user manuals for a seaweed farming system, for example, she might consider how different communities might adopt the technology. And as a California Sea Grant team member helping to develop California's kelp restoration plan, she is aware that much of the success in getting kelp forests restored will depend on balancing conservation and community needs, just as it did back with the conch fishers in Honduras.

"I use my social science background almost as often in my Sea Grant work as I do natural science," Palinkas notes. “I just feel like I thrive in interacting with members of the community." 

Her interdisciplinary approach even extends to her scientific diving work. Palinkas is certified up to a depth of 120 feet and has spent over a decade conducting underwater research and maintenance for Scripps. She still volunteers regularly for public dive shows at its Birch Aquarium.

Wearing a wetsuit and operating an underwater vacuum, Palinkas cleans the tank and helps feed the animals while her diving partner answers audience questions via microphone. The questions often touch on Palinkas' work for California Sea Grant. It offers the program "a little bit of exposure," she says. 

The variety of her professional activities keeps her engaged. And she has found that — whether she is 60 feet underwater or in a classroom full of fishermen — it’s connecting with people that enhances the impact of her technical expertise.

"You turn a corner and find yourself in a new country," she often remembers thinking while living in Brooklyn's diverse neighborhoods during her college years. Now active in a different career on the other side of the country, she still finds herself thinking the same thing as her work takes her up and down California's coast. 

Wherever you go in the state, "it's like a totally different region, a totally different culture," she says.