January’s meeting is our annual wacky gift exchange.
Please bring a wrapped gift. The gift should be comical (wacky) or something nice. Please remember that wacky doesn’t mean junk. Try to bring something that you yourself would be happy to receive.
Wear your holiday finery such as ugly Christmas sweaters and or Santa hats etc. This should make for some great Kodak moments.
November Speaker Chris Gug
Please join SFDI Wednesday, November 2, 2022, as we welcome Chris Gug. Gug will be discussing his recent expedition to Misool in West Papua, Indonesia. He'll show some of the images he shot, some of the techniques he uses and discuss the amazing reef surrounding Misool which is a conservation victory because of the Misool Foundation's passionate effort to make it a no take marine protected area. Gug will be presenting in person!
Chris Gug Bio-Regarded as America's foremost underwater photographer, Gug has been making waves in the art scene for well over a decade. With Chris being the most common name of his generation, "Gug" (pronounced "Goog") has stuck since grade school. And since grade school, he has spent tens of thousands of hours creating marine life images that awe, inspire and sometimes confuse.
With no formal photography education, Gug felt that total immersion into his subject matter was the only way to master the art, and moved to the Caribbean to live on a boat where he could dive and shoot every day for seven years. After a year back in the USA where he exhibited his portfolio, he again took off, craving more exotic subject matter, and landed in Papua New Guinea, where he again lived on a boat, for two years shooting underwater every day. Gug has now created images in over 40 different countries, been published in numerous magazines, and been displayed in several of the world's most prestigious museums. The result has been that his art is now being collected across the world, and the value of his limited edition photographs has seen a steady increase, making them a worthy investment for any art collector.
Based out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, he is now able to serve new clients and long-time collectors alike with a fine art gallery dedicated exclusively to his underwater images from around the world.
October Speaker Matt Nicholson
Please join SFDI Wednesday, October 5th, 2022, as we welcome Matt Nicholson, Marine Ecologist and currently a PhD candidate at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric and Earth Sciences. Matt will briefly walk us through some of the highlights of his career in research thus far. Then, he will dive (pun intended) into the work that his current lab group does, including the studies he led during his PhD. Briefly, the main focus is studying the ways in which parasites impact both individual hosts as well as coral reef communities overall. They are a global research group, working in the Caribbean, Australia, Africa, and the Philippines (although his PhD work has “only” taken place in the Caribbean and Australia). He will talk about their main study species (gnathiids), touching on what they are, what they know about them, the studies they are currently working on, and why studying something so small is so important.
Matt was born in Miami, Florida and raised just North of that in Pembroke Pines, Florida. He completed his undergraduate studies at Florida Gulf Coast University, and his master’s degree in England at the University of Exeter. Throughout his career he has been fortunate to have worked in South Africa, Australia, Wales, as well as several Caribbean islands. He has also worked on a wide variety of study species including sharks, fishes, seabirds, jellyfish, and parasites. Matt’s research focuses mainly on foodweb ecology (also termed “trophic ecology”) as well as symbiotic relationships among species.
Simply put, Matt just loves to be blowing bubbles in the ocean. In fact, during field research season (where he dives almost daily) he will often spend his “days off” by going diving. He often says that he couldn’t survive in any other career because nothing else engages his mind and imagination in the same way as research. Also, getting to call the ocean your “office”, and a tank top and boardshorts your “work clothes”, is a sweet deal. In addition to his research, Matt is a big proponent of the “science communication” field, which specifically aims (among other things) to engage non-scientists in ways that are interesting and easily digestible. Since returning to live in Florida in 2021 for the first time in several years, Matt has enjoyed being back “home” and looks forward to beginning a postdoctoral research position here in Miami once he finishes his PhD later this year.
September Speaker James Blackman
James Blackman 2022 - James started his diving career in the frigid waters off the turbulent coast of Cornwall, England. If your first dives are made in seas that resemble semi-frozen cabbage soup and you come away with a passion for the sport, you know it will be a life-long pursuit.
James spent ten years at sea working on luxury yachts and expedition ships, exploring the lesser-travelled corners of the world, from Russia’s White Sea to the coast of Madagascar, from Antarctica to Melanesia and far up the Amazon river. He has provided in-water safety direction for a wide range of media projects and public events and is a Public Safety Diver Instructor for Police and Fire Search and Rescue Units. While working in the Caribbean, James was involved in many search and recovery operations, from post-hurricane clean-ups to missing fishermen and lost or sunken property.
James’ teaching style is adaptable to the needs of his students. Each program starts with a consultation focused on the students’ goals. From there, James will tailor a training plan. Choosing to only teach one or two individuals at a time, James follows the exacting course standards as required by the training agency, but then takes the extra time for additional sessions, further developing each students’ knowledge and skills.
Now making his home in South Florida, James is enamored with the local dive scene here, especially the variety of wreck sites along our coast. When not travelling for expeditions or in-water safety diver roles, James can be found developing and mentoring the next generation of Technical Divers and Public Safety Divers here in Miami’s tropical climate.
