I have been interested in marine biology since I was very young, when a tidepool octopus that my brothers and I found squirted ink into my face. I did my undergraduate work in Biology at the University of California, Los Angeles, completed a MS in Marine Science at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories in 1989 and finished my PhD at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Biological Oceanography in 1996. The theme of my research is community ecology in extreme habitats. I have been involved in diverse research projects in a wide variety of locations, from studying polychaete worms in kelp forests off California, to examining marine mammal disturbance of soft bottoms in Alaska, investigating polluted areas in Antarctica, and studying the dispersal of animals between hydrothermal vent habitats in the deep sea.