Dr. Elitza (Ellie) Germanov, a Senior Scientist at MMF, is a world expert on manta rays and ocean pollution. She started the Microplastics and Megafauna project in Indonesia as part of her PhD work, which studied the impact of the smallest plastics on the largest marine animals. Janis Argeswara joined the project as a Research Assistant in 2018 and is now leading a project on the reproductive ecology of manta rays. I talked to them from their research base on Nusa Lembongan, off Bali’s southeast coast.

Nakia Cullain is the manager of the Závora Marine Lab, an MMF manta ray scientist, and has just started her PhD on manta ecology and research at Dalhousie University in Canada. I chatted to her from her base in Závora, Mozambique, where she has lived for the past six years.