Karly started diving when she was 14, and with the help of the WDHOF Ocean Pals training grant, she earned her divemaster certification the summer after she graduated high school. Her lifelong fascination with the ocean took her to the University of South Carolina, where she studied marine science and graduated with honors in 2009. As a freshman in college Karly began to work as a divemaster at a local dive shop, Columbia Scuba, where in 2007 she advanced to an open water scuba instructor and began teaching classes. She quickly found her niche teaching Project AWARE specialty classes and designed a unique scuba class on marine science and conservation that also taught divers to participate in underwater clean-ups and citizen science efforts. Karly continued to teach with Columbia Scuba through 2010 when she moved to Lima, Peru as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar. During her year in Peru she studied geography and the environment, learned to surf, and worked occasionally with a local instructor who held certification classes for Peruvian marine scientists. Karly is now a Ph.D. student at the University of California Santa Barbara where she is again studying marine science. Her work takes her to Colombia, where she studies the interactions between coastal communities and small-scale fisheries, and she always enjoys diving as a part of her travels. When she is in California she stays busy diving in the kelp forests of the Channel Islands National Park. She is a certified AAUS scientific diver and a volunteer with California Reef Check, an organization that completes annual surveys along the coast of California as part of a long term monitoring effort. Graduate school keeps her busy but she still manages to help with a couple of classes each year and never tires of helping others discover what lies beneath the waves.