alumni today
Researcher Oil Spill
UGA
Tackles Gulf
While conducting research on the BP oil
spill this summer in the Gulf of Mexico, scien-
tists on a boat spotted what appeared to be a
dark animal floating on the water. Quickly, the
hands on board retrieved what looked like a
northern gannet, covered with so much oil that
its usually light-colored wings were too heavy
to fly. The bird’s plight brought tears to its han-
dlers as they cleaned off the sticky residue and
took it to land for further care.
Samantha “Mandy” Joye ’ 87 discovered her love for marine science at Carolina and her passion
for the Gulf of Mexico after living in Texas for two years. Now a professor at the University of
Georgia, her work on the oil spill has made her “a spokesperson for the Gulf.”
tom while trying to understand how bacteria
eat methane, not just locally, but on a global
scale.
Her work: The University of Georgia works
with the National Institute for Undersea
Science and Technology, headquartered on the
coast near the Mississippi Canyon, an undersea
canyon in the central Gulf. Since the 1990s,
Joye has ventured out on various research cruises in the Gulf studying mainly methane dynamics, a key element of the crisis. A week or so
after the spill started in April, Joye e-mailed her
program manager, trying to get samples from
the spill. Joye also contacted the National
Science Foundation to request a rapid-response
grant for research. Two main research goals
include examining the water column of oil and
gas and studying methane near the ocean bot-
From Carolina to the Gulf: Joye majored in
biology as an undergraduate but took a marine
science class her junior year with Professor
Conrad Neumann. She was hooked. Joye, a varsity women’s basketball player at Carolina, went
on to get her master’s and doctoral degrees in
marine science at UNC in 1990 and 1993,
respectively, focusing on geochemistry and biogeochemistry. “That one amazing professor got
me into oceanography, and I wouldn’t be here
today if it wasn’t for Conrad and others,” Joye
says. “It’s a great university that has a special
place in my heart.” She then moved to
California for postdoctoral work and on to
Texas A&M University, where her passion for
the Gulf began. After two years living in Texas,
she moved to Georgia in 1997 to work as a
professor and researcher and has been there
since.
As she worked in the Gulf, Joye says, she
wondered about the possibility of a catastrophe.
“There is such an abundance of oil rigs, and
always in the back of my mind when working
out there, I would think of what might happen
if there was an oil spill, and I thought what
would I be interested in doing if an oil spill
happened and when a spill might happen.”
— Katie Lubinsky
Mandy Joye spent a total of three weeks in
the Gulf over the summer and headed back out
in mid-August for another five, with plans in
November for four more, living on a research
boat the whole time. One of the hardest parts of
her job is leaving her family behind on land,
including her daughter, Sophie, 2½, and her
husband of seven years, Christof Meile. “It’s hard
on them, especially Sophie. My whole professional life is taken over by this thing, and I don’t
have a lot of time. Thank God for Skype.”
Life on the Water
54
September/October 2010
