#11 Emma Bolton — Scientific diving, assessing marine biodiversity and understanding environmental DNA
Today's guest Emma Bolton is a marine biologist from Brighton/London and currently a research scientist at Basecamp Research. Previously, she worked for the British Antarctic Survey as a scientific diver, conducting important research under sea ice.
In this new episode, we discuss Emma's journey to become a scientific diver and her 20-month deployment on the Southern Pole. As a diver myself, I am absolutely in awe of diving in Antarctica, it is very much a pipe dream. Emma tells us about the benefit of sending humans under ice as opposed to robots, but also considers some tasks where they will be replaced.
Afterwards, we talk about her important work at Basecamp Research where she collects environmental DNA to discover new species and assess biodiversity. Marine environments are particularly interesting and essential to study in this regard — find out why!
