Leslie Sautter was born in
New
Jersey and was delivered by her own grandfather,
a pediatrician. When she was in first grade she moved to
Hamilton,
NY, where her father was a psychology
professor at
Colgate University
and where she would spend the majority of her childhood years.
She spent summers on the shores of
New Jersey
and
Cape Cod, Mass gaining an immense love of
the ocean. Her love of rocks would come in a similar fashion,
"My family traveled a lot in the country and did a lot of camping.”
Sautter says, adding “I have two older brothers and one summer
we spent the whole summer camping in the national parks and as a result
of that all three of us became geologists." It was that summer and the
many summers at the shores that led Sautter into the geological sciences,
or to be more exact marine geology.
Sautter graduated with a degree in geology from
Tufts
University in
Boston,
Mass. After graduating she studied
oceanography for half a year at the
University
of Washington in
Seattle,
"That was my semester abroad.” laughed Sautter.
Immediately after college she spent time working at the United States
Geological Survey (USGS) in Woods Hole, Mass. While on a research cruise
aboard a drilling vessel she met a recent Ph.D. graduate of the
University
of South Carolina who told
her of his first-rate experiences with the USC geology faculty.
Sautter headed to the
University
of South Carolina where she
earned not only her masters but also her Ph.D. in geological sciences.
She obtained post doctorate work in 1990 at
Columbia
University in
New
York. Being from the north and not really
wanting to stay in
Columbia, South
Carolina at the time, she and her husband Mike,
along with a three year old and a newborn baby packed up and made the
long trek to
New York.
After a year at
Columbia
she began to look for new opportunities and she found one and as she
tells it, "I walked into a job at South Carolina Sea Grant which is
part of NOAA here in
Charleston."
The position was set up as a joint position at the
College
of Charleston which was exactly
the kind of institution at which Dr. Sautter was looking to teach.
At the
College of Charleston
she was able to begin teaching classes in among other things marine
and coastal geology, and general marine science for teachers with an
emphasis on plate tectonics. She has been a driving force of the
education of undergraduates at the college promoting undergraduate research
and becoming a pioneer in the development of new marine science teaching
methods. This hard work and dedication resulted in her being presented
with the 2002 National Marine Education Award.
Sautter’s hard work and dedication
is also recognized by her colleagues. College of Charleston Biology
professor Dr. Gorka Sancho had this to say about Sautter, "Doc is
one of the most dynamic and imaginative professors in the college,
and she is fully focused on providing quality hands-on marine science
education opportunities to her students at CofC (College of Charleston),
as well as many others in the state of South Carolina. Her leadership
in creating programs that give students opportunities to immerse themselves
in ocean-going research is a great asset which greatly contributes
to CofC providing the best marine science education opportunities
in the state"
Project Oceanica's goal is to develop
programs and resources to expand coastal and oceanographic research
in the Southeast with an emphasis on teaching and developing the undergraduate
for work in the fields of oceanography and marine geology. It also
offers elementary, middle, and high school teachers an opportunity
to learn more about the field of marine science.
Project Oceanica is made
up of three parts, the “Transect Program” for college
undergraduates, the “At Sea Program” for high school student
research, and the “COASTeamProgram”, a marine science
course and classroom and research program for educators.
"This research cruise is a once-in-a-lifetime
experience” says Liz Symon a Marine Biology major at the College
of Charleston and participant
of the Transect Program. Liz goes on to say “Without a doubt,
[the Transect Program] has fueled my desire to pursue my dream and
has opened up my world to the loads of opportunities that await me
in the future of marine biological and oceanographic research."
Dr. Sautter hopes to continue to grow Project Oceanica in the coming
years and has already had contact with such schools as the University
of South Carolina, Coastal
Carolina, and Savannah State.
These schools, having had professors participate in Sautter’s
research cruises have expressed great interest and enthusiasm in regards
to the Transect Program.
Walt Whitman said in Miracles in 1856 "To me the sea
is a continual miracle; the fishes that swim, the rocks, the motion
of the waves, the ships, with men in them. What stranger miracles
are there?"
Dr. Leslie Sautter has made her life's work discovering and understanding
these miracles in an effort to pass on this understanding to the rest
of the world.
For more information on Dr. Leslie Sautter and Project Oceanica you
can visit the Project Oceanica web site at http://oceanica.cofc.edu/home.htm
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