The New Independent Scientist: A Case Study for Cultivating a Path Outside of Academia

As a growing number of students are earning degrees and entering the field of science, they are finding fewer and fewer jobs directly applicable to them. But instead of giving up on the field, we can invent a new job instead. Isla Mar Research Expeditions is a for-profit company in Puerto Rico that was established while both co-founders were still in graduate school. We partner with universities and private organizations to create a field-based teaching and research experience that educates and emboldens our community to care about ocean conservation and sustainability. In this way, we can also provide practical applications of scientific methods to tackle issues of coral reef health, fish community assessments and monitoring effectiveness of marine protected areas. We created this job to fulfill a desire to simultaneously teach real-life scientific applications in the field while also conducting our own grant-funded research on topics that interest us and are of practical need to address current issues on our island. As independent biologists with a business and a vision, we introduce a new way to pursue science that provides a flexible and dynamic approach to how we teach, interact with our community, and engage with our public and private entities. Our case study presents how we found our niche and cultivated our career in a non-traditional scientific setting.