Kathryn is a Southern California-based attorney and dive instructor who loves diving everywhere from the murky rock quarries of her home state of Iowa to the gin-clear caves of the Yucatán peninsula. Kathryn has helped prosecute federal environmental crimes, has worked with student groups to pursue remedies for Clean Water Act violations, and has assisted in training research divers for Reefcheck California. Kathryn used her scholarship to complete the intensive one-year LL.M. Program in Natural Resources and Environmental Law offered by Lewis & Clark Law School, a recommended school for environmentalists who want to change the world. Since earning her LL.M., Kathryn has been providing legal support for the protection of marine resources as an Attorney-Advisor in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Office of General Counsel. She advises programs working towards sustainable commercial fisheries, improving salmon’s access to spawning and rearing habitat, and recovering endangered and threatened marine and anadromous species, including sea turtles and cetaceans. She volunteers for Reef Check doing underwater surveys most years, and she continues teaching dive classes at Dive N’ Surf in her spare time. Her interests include scuba diving, reading, skiing, road cycling, playing guitar and listening to live music, traveling, and cooking. “I was pleased to be recognized as the 2014 NOAA Office of General Counsel Attorney of the Year, for work on behalf of the West Coast region of NOAA Fisheries and across the NOAA Office of the General Counsel. Jacques Cousteau taught that we protect what we love and, outside the office, I enjoy helping people learn to love our ocean environment first-hand, as a scuba diving instructor with Dive N’ Surf, a shop owned for more than six decades by the legendary divers and surfers of the Meistrell family. When time allows, I also volunteer for Reef Check California, conducting nearshore rocky reef surveys with a dedicated team of citizen-scientists. I enjoy participating as an associate member of WDHOF when the opportunity arises.”