Sophie Schönherr

Intern

sophie.schoenherr@kaust.edu.sa

Alumni

Biography

Sophie graduated from Maastricht University with a Bachelor of Science (BSc) in January 2020. She spent the last year of her BSc at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, where she studied marine biology and oceanography and she then did her bachelor thesis on coral restoration in Curaçao. Since her graduation, she has interned in different fields of marine science, namely fisheries, marine mammal ecology and coral restoration. From December 2020 to June 2021 she sailed from the Canary Islands to the Cape Verdes, Brazil and finally to the Bahamas. During this time, she worked as crew, deckhand, scientific advisor and gained experience in shark diving and coral farming.

Sophie is a passionate scuba diver and a certified Divemaster, devoted to the conservation of our oceans. Now a visiting student intern at KAUST, Sophie is looking forward to joining the team’s efforts to contribute to ground-breaking marine research that ultimately allows to protect and conserve marine life worldwide. During her internship, she will be working with Wally Rich (current Ph.D. candidate) to explore how the physiology of a common coral species of the Red Sea may change across thermally distinct habitats.