Graduate Student at the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping, School of Marine Science and Ocean Engineering, University of New Hampshire

Many of the future’s motivated leaders in their respective fields gain a lifetime of experience while they’re still enrolled as students and student researchers. Young people interested in entering geospatial professions can read numerous articles Shannon Hoy has authored that present complex scientific concepts in an accessible format. Shannon graduated from the College of Charleston in 2012 with a degree in marine biology. Having grown up in landlocked Dallas, Texas, she has always been fascinated by the oceans. As an undergraduate she spent three years volunteering for the NOAA Marine Mammal Strandings and Assessment project.

As Shannon became interested in marine geology and ocean mapping, she began to go out to sea to map the sea floor. She has participated in nine expeditions, working in areas from the coast of Antarctica, to crossing the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, to crossing the International Date Line. She is now a graduate student at UNH focusing on aspects of habitat mapping and crowd-sourced data.