Expedition Team
Marilou Maglione, W-86
Age: 45
Alumna: W-86
Occupation: Pathology Lab Manager, UNC Hospitals
Chapel Hill, NC
Born in Buffalo, NY, I fell in love with boating and water activities when very little thanks to my parents who spent much of each summer boating on Lake Erie and each winter sitting by different pools while us kids took swimming lessons. We moved to Florida in 1974 and were lucky enough to live on a salt-water canal. My brother and I were spoiled by a little john-boat that we could take out exploring and fishing, long before we got our driver's licenses. For my 16th birthday all I wanted were SCUBA lessons, which opened up a whole new depth to my love for the water (pun intended J).
As a student at Eckerd College, I worked as a ski-boat driver (yes, I got paid for that awesome job!) and also served on the Search and Rescue Team as boat crew and recovery diver. We trained for hundreds of hours on and under the water doing everything from helping boaters who visited the local sand bars to recovering bodies of drowning victims. The biggest thrill was jumping from a Coast Guard helicopter in full scuba to look for survivors trapped inside of a large capsized sailboat off shore. What a privilege and maritime education that was! While a senior at Eckerd I sailed on W-86 and studied mesopelagic fishes. That was my first time in the deep, open ocean and an experience I feel ever thankful to have had. I could hardly wait to see what interesting new critters would come up in the next tow and loved everything about the experience, especially the lab work. Open-ocean sailing was like no other experience for me, simultaneously challenging, exciting, and humbling in the vastness of the sea and stars.
I couldn't get enough of the ocean, so I spent the summer after graduation teaching marine science at SeaCamp on Big Pine Key, FL. I returned to St. Pete., FL in 1987 to work at the Florida Dept. of Natural Resources as a Histology technician. I was able to learn electron microscopy, histology skills, and participate in field and lab work devoted to preserving endangered marine game fish species like Snook and Redfish. When I started graduate studies in marine science at USF, I needed to work a more flexible schedule. So I got my SCUBA instructor certification and Coast Guard captain's license, letting me work really fun jobs and also travel for cheap to lots of great dive sites. But alas, my Ph.D. track got derailed and eventually the reality of student loans and other responsibilities took over. I redirected my love of lab work to healthcare and laboratory medicine.
For the past 20+ years, I've worked in pathology labs as a histotechnologist, cytotechnologist and currently I am a clinical pathology lab manager for UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill, NC. I live on a little farm with my husband and a menagerie of creatures great and small with fins, fur, and feathers. We raise a few heritage breeds of livestock the old-fashioned way with concern for the environment, the animals, energy conservation (hubby makes biofuel) and the local food system. I've stayed as connected to the ocean as possible by continuing to teach SCUBA, take diving vacations as often as possible, and visiting other water-loving family and friends.
I'm planning to begin my Masters in Public Health very soon and I'm hoping this great opportunity will help me with that endeavor. Getting back out to sea while doing real field work again is an amazing opportunity that I'm honored to be a part of. Plastic pollution is a very important to me – hopefully our efforts will increase public awareness of the extent to which humans are poisoning the oceans and thereby themselves.
