Friends of the Riverhead Free Library Travel Club

Antarctica: My Experience at the Bottom of the World

In this exciting talk, Dr. Marianne McNamara will highlight the adventures of conducting research on and living aboard an icebreaker for two months at the bottom of the world. Find out how scientists work (and play) in this harsh, remote - but beautiful - setting. Enjoy breath-taking photography, while she describes traveling in 60-foot seas, navigating the Ross Ice Shelf (the farthest point south approachable by ship), working in subzero temperatures under 24-hours of daylight, and encountering the locals (seals, whales and penguins)! 

Dr. McNamara is a Professor of Biology and Marine Biology/Oceanography at Suffolk County Community College. Specializing in marine biology, she spent several months at sea in nearby Long Island waters, as well as the Eastern Tropical Pacific and Antarctica, studying the feeding ecology of zooplankton. Prior to and during her tenure at SCCC, she served as a naturalist and educator for numerous local organizations including the Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation, Ward Melville Heritage Organization, Long Island Divers Association, and the Coastal Research and Education Society of Long Island (CRESLI). She continues to work with CRESLI as a naturalist aboard summer whale watching trips out of Montauk. Dr. McNamara was awarded the Jerry R. Schubel Graduate Fellowship for her role in transmitting science into forms that are accessible to the public and continues to promote scientific and ocean literacy as a traveling lecturer in SCCC’s Professors on Wheels program.

If anyone is interested and able to make a presentation of a beloved trip, please email Claire Ondrovic at rhosereo@optonline.net.