Ann Marie Hulver was born in Chicago, IL but moved to the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia when she was four years old. Throughout her entire life she has always enjoyed living near the Arabian Gulf and has been fascinated by all of the animals inhabiting the oceans of the world. For her undergraduate degree, Ann Marie studied Marine Biology at Northeastern University in Boston, MA. Throughout her studies she participated in the Three Seas Program - an intensive, year-long program that focuses on three different ecosystems: the rocky intertidal in Boston; coral reefs in Bocas del Toro, Panama; and kelp forests in Friday Harbor, Washington. From this experience she met many professors from Northeastern and universities worldwide.

 

After Three Seas, Ann Marie began an Honors Thesis project with Dr. Mark Patterson at Northeastern University's Marine Science Center. She built a diver operated profiling device to measure fine scale fluctuations of dissolved oxygen above ecosystems. She once again travelled to Panama in order to continue this research on coral reefs. During this time, Ann Marie was applying to KAUST. Her interests at KAUST are to study the connectivity of the Red Sea with the surrounding coral reef ecosystems.​