Team

Matt grew up in the beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota, where he spent his childhood fishing, camping, and enjoying all that the woods offer. Coming from a family of fishers and hunters, he spent a lot of time at mountain lakes and brooks and was often distracted by catching frogs, snakes, and minnows in the marshes when he should have been monitoring a fishing pole. His childhood dream to study the ocean and its inhabitants came from visits to a small roadside tourist attraction called ‘Marine Life Aquarium’, as well as from the home marine aquariums he attempted to maintain as a child.

Matt earned an undergraduate degree in information systems but changed career paths later in life to earn his PhD in marine biology and oceanography at Nova Southeastern University (NSU). Currently an assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at NSU, he teaches various graduate and undergraduate courses, many of which focus on the integration of science and technology. He is also a researcher at the SOSF Shark Research Center, where his work involves computational biology as applied to investigating shark movement ecology and connectivity patterns of broadcast spawning marine species.

Matt lives on a small hobby farm in the country, raising chickens, parrots, and poodles. He also enjoys collecting fossils, many of which are relics of North America’s Western Interior Seaway.