I just was mesmerized by all of this life everywhere I looked. And so I wanted to be a marine biologist.

I wanted to be a meteorologist. I wanted to be a marine biologist.

I developed an optical lure that imitates certain types of bioluminescent displays that I think might be attractive to large predators. The other way to do it is just use dead bait, but I think dead bait attracts scavengers, and we wanted to attract active predators.

During my first open ocean dive, I went down to 800 feet and turned out the lights. I knew I would see bioluminescence, but I was totally unprepared for how much. It was incredible! There were explosions of light everywhere, like being in the middle of a silent fireworks display.

Squid experts have been debating for some time about whether the giant squid is a passive predator that just floats around in the water and waits to bump into something. I was never one to imagine it to be passive.

We need a NASA-like organization for ocean exploration, because we need to be exploring and protecting our life support systems here on Earth.