Charlotte Johns

Charlotte is currently in her third year of her Integrated Master of Marine Biology degree, due to be completed in 2018 at the University of Southampton. Since deciding she was going to be a marine biologist at the age of four, she strived to gain as much experience as she could growing up, along with studying hard throughout her school life to achieve acceptance for the University of Southampton.

By completing her first diving experience at the age of nine (PADI Bubblemaker), she pursued her diving passion by achieving PADI Open Water (2013, Costa Brava, Spain) and Advanced Open Water (AOW) (2015, Guinjata Bay, Mozambique). For Charlotte, SCUBA diving has always been about observing marine life, with her particular interest in cetaceans, cephalopods and elasmobranchs.

Charlotte has travelled extensively in twenty years, but one of the most notable experiences started when she travelled to Mozambique as a volunteer for Love The Oceans in 2015. By experiencing life as a hands-on marine conservationist, Charlotte was lucky enough to witness two adolescent male humpback whales swimming above during an ascent on a required PADI AOW dive. This experience has fuelled her ambition as a marine conservationist to investigate humpback whale behaviour and vocalisations.

Charlotte also enjoys taking part in related voluntary work, including helping with the WWF UK Shark Tagging Programme, attending the Underwater Sound Forum 2016 and aiding crustacean identification at her local Environment Agency laboratory.

Charlotte can be contacted directly at: caj1g14@soton.ac.uk

March 2017