I graduated from the Marine Environmental Biology (MEB) program in March 2005. After finishing I was a postdoc at the University of California, Santa Cruz, before starting as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology at Cornell University in January 2009.  I came to USC from Australia largely because the faculty in MEB  are amongst the world's most well known marine scientists, particularly in my field of marine microbiology. From being a teaching assistant at the Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies on Santa Catalina Island for several months, to 7 research cruises in the equatorial Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean and coastal California, I latched onto many opportunities to conduct marine research away from the traditional academic setting in Los Angeles. Through research assistantship support from my advisor, I gained a very wide set of molecular biological and microbiological laboratory skills. As a student I published my work extensively, and had numerous opportunities to communicate my work at conferences and to the department through their student seminar series. I left the MEB program well prepared for multidisciplinary oceanographic research, and with the determination to move onto higher academic levels!