Samantha Garcia is a 2022 King Tides Community Science Intern at the University of Hawaiʻi (UH) Sea Grant College Program. As a Sea Grant Intern, Samantha has worked on several projects, such as designing flyers and posts for Hawaiʻi Sea Grant social media pages, analyzing tidal prediction data from NOAA to help inform what dates to organize volunteers around for King Tide photo surveys, attending outreach events to educate the public about the King Tides Project, and more.

Samantha is from San Diego, California, and grew up surfing since she was 10 years old. After discovering her passion for surfing, she moved to Oʻahu to attend the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UHM) to earn a Bachelor of Science degree in Marine Biology. In 2022, Samantha participated in the OPIHI (Our Project in Hawaiʻi’s Intertidal) Program at UHM where she conducted research for the James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge on the North Shore of Oʻahu. During the summer of 2023, Samantha completed an internship at the Kauaʻi National Wildlife Refuge Complex with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the Conservation Career Experience Program. Now, Samantha looks forward to working with Hawaiʻi Sea Grant as she continues to finish her degree.