Fascinated throughout childhood with treasures found on beaches and in the surf she eventually channeled her passion into an academic and then a professional career of interpreting and translating ocean science.
Cathy holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology and a Masters of Education in Science from Armstrong State University in Savannah.
Throughout her career Cathy interpreted ocean science to many different audiences in many different locations through different media. Her naturalist career is still active as she leads canoeing and kayaking wilderness expeditions into the Okefenokee Swamp and Everglades and to Georgia’s many gorgeous barrier islands. Her television career resulted in two Emmy Award winning nature series and a special documentary for Georgia Public Broadcasting. Additionally she hosted an award winning nature series of 66 shows for Turner South. Her most recent documentary with partner Mehmet Caglayan, also of Ocean Exchange, profiles multigenerational commercial fishing families of coastal Georgia and their ever shifting industry.
From October 1998 to her official retirement in January 2014 Cathy worked with NOAA Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary as an educator and scientific diver. Highlights of her career included piloting a one-person submersible called DeepWorker 2000 on multiple missions to explore Gray’s Reef and Florida Middle Grounds. She also spent nine days underwater as an Aquanaut working from Aquarius Undersea Laboratory with five other scientists to study changes on Conch Reef off of Key Largo.
Cathy is now a private consultant and a documentary film maker as well as an author of many true, albeit unusual stories from her career and adventures in remote wilderness areas.
As Co-Founder of Ocean Exchange, Cathy stays happily engaged in the global community by promoting solutions to all global issues connected by our planet’s greatest resource, Our Ocean.