Rising fourth year Jackeline Godinez Gonzales gazes at her large ceramics sculpture that she describes as an embodiment of her childhood dreams of becoming a marine biologist. (Photo: Nick Neumann/USC Wrigley Institute)
Marine biology ambitions inspire monumental sculpture
Childhood visits to aquariums sparked Jackeline Godinez Gonzales’s lifelong curiosity and awe for marine life. Years later, that curiosity inspired a ocean-themed sculpture shaped by her experiences studying and conducting research at the Wrigley Marine Science Center, the USC Wrigley Institute’s satellite campus on Catalina Island.
When Godinez Gonzales arrived at USC, she set out to turn her dream of becoming a marine biologist into reality by pursuing a major in environmental studies and a minor in marine biology. Last year, she participated in the Wrigley Institute’s Maymester–an immersive undergraduate program focused on understanding and addressing challenges facing our oceans–to take a course in the USC Environmental Studies Program (ENST). Outside the classroom, she also gained hands-on experience through various research opportunities at the Wrigley Institute and at other labs at USC.
Although her journey is still unfolding, reflecting on her experiences inspired Godinez Gonzales to create a ceramics sculpture for a Spring 2026 course at the USC Roski School of Art & Design that expresses her ambitions and fascination of the diversity of life beneath the ocean’s surface.
Godinez Gonzales describes the sculpture, which stands nearly 6 feet tall, as “a humanized version of a sea angel,” a small, transparent marine animal that swims through the ocean using wing-like fins. The figure wears a dress inspired by marine life found around Catalina Island, including a spotted leopard sharks, slithering moray eels, and bright orange garibaldis. At the bottom of the dress lies a few decorative shells collected at Two Harbors, a small town about 2 miles away from the Wrigley Marine Science Center–keepsakes from Godinez Gonzales’s adventures on the island.
“One message that I want viewers to get from my piece is to always reconnect [with] and embrace your childhood dreams,” she says.
Godinez Gonzales plans to continue pursuing her dreams this summer. She will return to the Wrigley Marine Science Center as a summer research intern to conduct research on giant kelp, alongside 2026 Wrigley Institute Graduate Fellow Kurt Castro and USC Dornsife Assistant Professor in the Marine and Environmental Biology Julia Schwartzman.
Video: Vanessa Codilla/USC Wrigley Institute