Angela Collins

 

Angela Collins is a Florida native who grew up on the water and has been working in marine science for over 20 years. She received an undergraduate degree in Marine Biology from Florida Atlantic University, and a Master’s of Science and PhD in Biology from the University of South Florida. Two of her earliest jobs included running the beaches before dawn to look for sea turtle nests and working as an aquarist with Walt Disney World’s The Living Seas, where she spent her time taking care of the animals and doing daily dives in the gigantic aquarium.

 

On a quest for more research, she traded Florida for the bayous of Louisiana, where she worked as a scientific diver and research technician at the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium (LUMCON). After a few Mardi Gras parades and a lot of ship time at sea, she headed back to Florida, moved onto a sailboat and worked at Mote Marine Laboratory in the Center for Shark Research, where she investigated the movement and feeding ecology of cownose rays. She spent the last decade with Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, where she specialized in cooperative research as related to marine reef fisheries. She has done extensive research on reef fishes including Hogfish, Goliath Grouper and Gag grouper. She has spent over 2000 hours underwater and is completely obsessed with fish stories.

 

In June of 2015, she embarked on a new adventure with the University of Florida/Florida Sea Grant and she is currently a Sea Grant Agent working with anglers, divers and marine industry on the west coast of Florida.  She loves her work but is the proudest of her family – she and her husband are blessed with a little boy who is already an avid angler!

 

Angela Collins will be presenting on October 19th, 2018. We will be updating our calendar with activity dates and times as we continue to coordinate our event. Stay tuned!

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