Alumni Spotlight: Victoria Boatwright, Ocean Scientist and PhD Candidate

Our Alumni Spotlight series elevates alumni voices in the environmental field and shares their inspiring stories. Hundreds of Hoyas within the vast network of Georgetown alumni are working toward a greener future — leading critical projects in wildlife conservation, sustainable business, ecological research and other vital efforts. 

Victoria Boatwright (CAS ’22) graduated from Georgetown with a Bachelor of Science in Biological Physics. Her work, which has landed her positions with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Department of Energy (DOE), a Fulbright research placement and a doctoral student candidacy at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, focuses on physical and biogeochemical modeling of ocean phenomena. 

Boatwright is also active in environmental policy, maintaining involvement in local and national causes. As a student at Georgetown, she was part of the student-led campaign to divest from fossil fuels at the university level in 2020, as well as a driven member of GREEN, an on-campus club with a focus on sustainability and the climate. Boatwright is an avid sailor and runner. 

CH: Tell us a little bit about what you have been doing since graduation.

VB: Currently, I’m a PhD student at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at U.C. San Diego. I’m studying physical oceanography, which means we study how the currents in the ocean move, how they propagate and how different physical forcings in the oceans change and mediate properties that we’re interested in. I’m really interested in the biogeochemical aspect of systems such as carbon cycling and ecological health and their day-to-day applications in, for example, fisheries. But pure physical oceanography is more just energy in the ocean and that is what I focus the majority of my time on. 

So, right now, I am studying a lot! But before this, after finishing my undergrad at Georgetown in 2022, I did a Fulbright in Germany. There, I was a visiting researcher at an institute for coastal studies, where I looked at how offshore wind turbines and offshore wind farms in the North Sea — specifically in its shallow coastal regions — can impact primary productivity via tidal forcing. In other words, we examined how the tides running through offshore wind farms are inducing turbulence and potentially changing the vertical flux — or the upward motion of nutrient and sediment transport. This would have an impact on nutrient cycling and the overall ecosystem of the North Sea.

Lastly, I’ve also been able to do some work with the Department of Energy on improving carbon models to better understand carbon sequestration and verification and quantification of ocean carbon dioxide removal methods. Essentially, we are working to put in place a process to measure and verify carbon sequestration because carbon sequestration is happening, but it’s not getting well measured. As this progresses, we are also looking at what’s happening biochemically on the local scale and beginning to factor that into the process, especially as we begin to implement marine carbon dioxide removal. 

CH: What inspired you to pursue your field? 

VB: I grew up in a coastal town. When I was in school, I really liked physics and biology. I became a STEM person, I guess — and that was only enhanced at Georgetown. I liked my physics classes. I loved Professor Heidi Elmendorf and her class on the structure and function of the cell, which covered physics-driven mechanistic processes within biological processes. 

And then I kind of ran into the fact that oceanography was a field and that with climate modeling, we can integrate biology and physics to study phenomena that had already raised questions in my own life for me: changing weather patterns, warming waters, coastal erosion and breakwater change. I think that being able to ask the questions that I already really liked asking and then being on a path that engaged this kind of knowledge in some form of climate advocacy and climate-adjacent work was something that I just wanted to do — it fit a lot of bills. 

CH: What career path led you to where you are now?

VB: One summer during undergrad, I got a job in my hometown. It was kind of just the job that you would try to get if you wanted to stay in my hometown. But then, I realized there was really cool science going on there! This, in turn, opened my eyes to some of the opportunities and some of the questions that were happening in the field. That was maybe the first moment where I thought, “Oh, this is feasible, this is a feasible career path.” 

I think for some people when they come to Georgetown, it feels like D.C. is so big and a lot is happening that doesn’t feel tangible, and it feels kind of far from home in certain ways. I think going back home and doing this internship put me in an environment that I was used to and where I felt grounded. That put me in a position where I could see a future in ocean sciences. 

I also had a physics class, “Modern Physics” with Professor atrick Johnson, during which the Professor put aside five lectures at the end to cover topics of interest to students. I submitted my interest in climate and ocean sciences, and he included it in the lecture series! Afterward, I went down rabbit hole after rabbit hole following the links that he posted to lecture notes and began reaching out to people in the field. 

I think for Georgetown, this story is sort of interesting because as a university, it is full of go-getters and people who have passions and will be interacting with them in a lot of different ways. This was an instance where having a professor who wanted to know what you care about — and give students the resources to open those doors — generated positive outcomes for students. 

CH: Your work has already brought you across the world and across the country. How does your work change your immersion in different environments?

VB: With my physics background, I notice my environment more and can ask questions about it and even sometimes have answers! The environment is actively influencing my experience in the world and in turn, I am trying to understand and have an impact on it too, even if academia is a long path to impact, it’s something I am wrestling with. 

That being said, I think where I have worked has mostly changed my day-to-day life and what I prioritize getting involved with. In different places, how you can have the greatest environmental impact differ. In one place, for instance, working on housing with important climate implications — such as housing density or what makes a livable community — might be the area I would like to get most involved. And sometimes, it is as simple as I’m living somewhere beautiful and I get to enjoy that beauty! 

CH: What advice would you give to current students looking to pursue a career similar to you?

VB: It was interesting studying science at a largely liberal arts institution. It presented a lot of opportunities to be involved in areas outside of science and, luckily, Georgetown has a very tight-knit science community that also supported me in my scientific endeavors. So, I’d say my advice for people would be: Don’t be afraid if you think that Georgetown isn’t specified for you or your imagined career path, but make sure that you’re doing things that get you closer to your ideal career path or that make you excited. That’s the way to figure out who to talk to and open the right doors for yourself. 

And for oceanography, I think doing summer internships related to oceanography, field work or applying to fellowships is always important. I think that that helped me a lot. It gave me the experience to know what to do next and to create a network in this field. 

CH: What do you hope for your field in the next few years? In ten years? In your lifetime?

VB: I’m pretty new to this field, but I have noticed a few patterns in academia in my short time. 

Historically, academia, in general, and oceanography, specifically, have been a little separate from industry and the “real world.” Often, the science community and academic community stick to themselves and don’t necessarily have a lot of industry connections. That is, in part, induced by the structure of academia in which the qualifications to be a scientist are how many papers you write, how many classes you teach, how many conferences you present at and how many grants you’ve received. These are measurements of success in the scientific community. 

We need scientists — and we are getting them — who are interested and maybe even required to do local engagement and climate engagement where they interface with the public and also provide useful tools for the public. For example, we should be sharing information like climate forecasts in the near term. In oceanography, we are coming to a point of impacting real humans. In the near to long-term future, I imagine the field becoming better at creating that communication and potentially evaluating scientists better on how well we are interfacing with the communities in which we live. 

I think that it would be cool to also, you know, solve climate change, but I don’t think that we really need to do that much more science to do that. I think it is communities and societies that need to change, and they need information to do that. That’s the scientific community’s job: to disseminate information.