Michael Harte

Obsessed with the ocean? Same. I've been an Oceanography professor at OSU since 2005 and teaching scuba through OSU's dive program since 2014, and honestly, getting people into the water for the first time never gets old. There's nothing quite like watching someone go from nervous on the surface to totally hooked 30 feet down.

When I'm not gearing up for a dive, I'm deep in the weeds on some of the ocean's biggest issues — think fisheries sustainability in the Pacific Islands, managing illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing, and who actually gets to fish where and why. It's the kind of stuff that sounds dry until you realize it shapes the health of the very ocean you'll ever dive in.

So yeah, my job is about getting you dive certified.  But if I do it right, you'll also come up with a whole new respect for what's living down there — and why it matters. Let's go diving.