Since I was a little child in my home country Brazil I was fascinated about animals, humans and their behaviour. What captivated me was how the beautiful way our bodies work, with all the tiny parts working together to make us alive. I wanted to study nature and how we interact with it, so I ended up studying Pharmacy.

But by going to the beach during the holidays, I discovered my passion for the ocean. My fascination then spread to wonders beyond biology, leading me to the oceanographic world. There, I understood how all parts of the ocean are connected and make it work as a single system, just like the human body! The currents in the ocean won me over!

Having Pharmacy and Biology backgrounds, I think of the ocean as the blood of the Earth! I want to understand how the ocean currents work and learn their importance for the whole Earth’s system.

To answer these questions, I use a range of interesting (and fun!) tools. I write and run computer programs that allow me to check how winds, islands, underwater mountains and tides affect currents’ direction and intensity. In these programs, I can stop the Earth’s rotation or stop the winds from blowing and see what happens with the movements in the ocean – just like playing a computer game. And this is how I build knowledge about the ocean currents!

Find out more: www.imas.utas.edu.au/research/oceans-and-cryosphere