Rikki was born in Oslo, Norway and her family’s passion for sailing meant she and her sister started cruising Denmark’s Kattegat & the Caribbean from an early age! By the time Rikki was 10, her family moved to a barrier island along Florida’s Atlantic Ocean, where her and her sister began plying the inter-coastal waterway in a small skiff. Here, they relished observing egrets, dolphins, horseshoe crabs and stingrays off their dock. At 14, she certified in SCUBA peak beneath the water’s surface. This passion remained with Rikki, and she ventured off to college with dreams of joining Jacques Cousteau’s research cruises. Rikki was fortunate to gain a scholarship for her Master’s in environmental conservation and marine biology at Duke University. From Duke, she landed her dream job working as a marine biologist in the US Virgin Islands where she studied coral reefs to understand the effects of coral disease, overfishing, and the impacts of upland development for 5 years. On the weekends, she explored the BVI from the bow of her sailboat. She then gained her Ph.D. from the University of Florida, researching coral reefs in the US Virgin Islands, Turks and Caicos, and Florida and moved to Santa Cruz, California to join NOAA’s National Marine Protected Areas Science Institute in 2004. While the cold temperate waters of California were a shock at first, she quickly started sailing, surfing, and diving in Monterey Bay, discovering the fascinating marine life that the Central Coast offers. Rikki enjoys sharing her passion for the ocean with others, and believes that through better understanding, humans can live side by side with marine inhabitants without damaging this fragile marine ecosystem.