Making waves with the surfing citizen scientists

When Clifford Kapono’s PhD supervisor called him in for a meeting one day, he wasn’t sure what to expect.

‘Explain this,’ said Pieter Dorrestein – professor at the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of California San Diego in the US – turning round his computer screen to display photos and articles featuring Kapono in the surf.

At first Kapono was worried he was in trouble. Perhaps his supervisor wasn’t happy about time spent surfing rather than science-ing? But actually, Dorrestein was excited to see Kapono’s passion and wanted to explore ways for him to combine his two favourite pastimes: to swap the wet-lab for the waves.

‘That’s when everything changed for me,’ says Kapono. ‘It was the first time that a mentor was okay with stepping outside of just the mission of the grant, or the mission of the lab. It was really taking a passion and integrating the science into [it] in that way.’