Dr. Marina Ramon, Director, Title III HSI STEM Grant, Adjunct Instructor, Biology Department
by Rachel Mitchell, Anthropology Instructor, CCFT Adjunct Chair
I’m so delighted to share this month’s faculty profile featuring Dr. Marina Ramon. At the time of this interview in early September, Marina and I were celebrating the completion of the Unity Mural and how we hoped that the campus and community celebration would become an annual tradition as a way to welcome the new academic year. Reflecting on her time as an undergraduate student at UCSC, Marina shared how validating and welcoming she found the murals at Oakes College to be, really making her feel at home. And I know we are not alone in looking forward to having even more of them grace our Watsonville and Aptos campuses!
While most of her STEM colleagues know this, many outside of the natural and applied sciences division may not know that Dr. Ramon is a molecular evolutionary biologist moonlighting as an ichthyologist. She was drawn to studying fish because of their short generational spans and fascinating evolutionary history, making them an ideal research subject. Another thing you might not know about Marina, is that she spent three months in Patagonia studying elephant seals for an internship as an undergraduate. She talked about how challenging this time was for her on a number of levels. First, even though she was there during the Patagonian summer (January – March), it was still tough adapting to the climate. Second, she had very limited outside contact and was pretty isolated from everyone while working at a rather remote station. And third, the politics surrounding her work in an area where ecotourism generated lots of revenue, but seriously disrupted the molting season of the seal population, with little support for regulating the industry to mitigate its negative impacts was also tough. Marina says she learned some important lessons from this experience, including that she did not want to continue studying elephant seals!
After spending the early part of her career doing scientific research and having worked with the USDA and with a non-profit organization, Dr. Ramon was happy to return to academia where she cherishes the relationships she builds with students and loves the excitement of watching them make discoveries about themselves and within the STEM fields. Her own experiences as a first generation, Latina scientist make her passionate about mentoring and supporting STEM students of color, helping them navigate college structures and culture, and encouraging them to seek out resources and ask for help—something she knows many Latinx students struggle with doing.
Borrowing some ideas from Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead podcast I asked Marina to share “What’s one piece of advice that is so good you have to share it with us or so terrible you have to warn us?” Marina noted that as a member of an advocacy group, she was told that, “If you’re not at the table, then you’re going to be served for dinner.” Well, anyone who has worked with Marina while she’s been at Cabrillo knows she has taken this to heart and it may explain why she’s probably familiar to you—she’s at a lot of tables: the HSI Taskforce, the Chicano/Latino Affairs Council, the Faculty Senate as Treasurer (a role from which she just recently stepped down) and, she is the Title III HSI STEM Grant Director. Of course, all of these reflect her passion for supporting STEM students of color and her desire to enact transformative change towards equity, diversity, and inclusion.
In closing, I asked Marina to choose three of her favorite songs and share what she thought they said about her. Here are the three she selected: Soy Yo by Bomba Estereo, Say Hey I Love You by Michael Franti & Spearhead, and Another One Bites the Dust by Queen, which she called her perseverance song. Marina says that essentially, they speak to how we should all recognize and embrace who we are, and for her, personally, how she is who she is and she’s not going to be apologetic about it. Thank goodness for that! Our campus and our community are all the richer for her inspiring, empowering, and dedicated mentorship and leadership.