My name is Sebastian Velez, and I am a recent graduate of Florida Atlantic University with a master’s degree in biology. My research at FAU focused on how currents can affect the distribution of larval snappers and groupers in the Gulf of Mexico. Some of you may remember me as the resident “Fish-Guy” from our last cruise aboard the R/V Neil Armstrong. I was fortunate enough to merit an invitation on the sequel journey aboard the R/V Endeavor to continue helping with the identification of fishes caught in the Bongo nets and Isaacs-Kidd Midwater Trawl (IKMT) we used last time. Make sure to keep an eye out for my future posts as I will be focused on some of the cool deepsea and not-so-deepsea fishes we pull up.

I also come aboard this vessel as a representative of a related National Oceanographic Partnership Program project called DEEP SEARCH (DEEP Sea Exploration to Advance Research on Coral/Canyon/Cold seep Habitats program). The focus of which is to improve our understanding of the distribution of these ecosystems to properly manage them. By doing so we hope to improve our ability to predict the distribution of these habitats with respect to potential development of energy and marine minerals managed by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and their concurrent mission to protect the environment. Check out the following link if you’d like to know more about DEEP SEARCH and our missions and future research cruises! https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/17deepsearch/welcome.html