Hanna Odahara will spend her time as a 2024 executive fellow in NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, working with the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Lab (AOML). At AOML, Hanna will be helping to transfer research into meaningful outcomes using transition planning. She is looking forward to understanding, during her Knauss Fellowship, how researchers, governments, and communities intersect and can work together to foster change. She is also excited to grow her communication and collaboration skills in order to marry her loves of science and coastal communities.

Hanna received a bachelor of science degree in marine biology in December of 2021 while concurrently pursuing a master of science degree in marine science at Hawaiʻi Pacific University, which she completed in May of 2023. Most of her research pursuits involved corals, spanning from genetics to geochemistry. Hanna’s thesis explored the most effective methodologies for observing fine-scale changes in coral calcifying fluid chemistry, retroactively, using Raman spectroscopy, as well as how bleaching affects coral calcifying fluids, on short timescales.