Nathaniel is a Staff Researcher in the Sandin Lab. Originally from Illinois, as a young boy Nathaniel became interested in Marine Biology through the books of Jacques Cousteau. A career in Marine biology seemed unrealistic growing up in a land-locked state and surrounded by oceans of corn and soybeans; so he went to school to study Civil and Environmental Engineering (B.S. 2005 and M.S. 2007, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) and started his career as a water resources engineer working on various projects throughout the Midwest. However, after learning how to SCUBA dive he decided to go back to school and earned a Master's of Applied Studies in Marine Biology and Conservation from Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 2015. His curiosity in coral reef ecology was ignited and he spent the next several years working in the Caribbean as a biological science technician for the National Park Service in St. Croix, USVI and a coral reef ecology instructor in Bonaire. In 2021, Nathaniel returned to San Diego and joined the Sandin Lab. His main role is managing the lab's involvement in the Island-Ocean Connection Challenge (jointheiocc.org) which includes everything from collecting data in the field to sharing/reporting to meeting with stakeholders and community members about the project and everything in between.