Charlotte Garmann-Johnsen | December 17th, 2024 | Stories

Interview with Malin Bø Nevstad, NTNU PhD fellowship and marine biologist. 

Malin Bø Nevstad

I use the Seabee research infrastructure to map eelgrass, habitats for different species and seabed mapping. The main interests for the projects here are eelgrass and macroalgae such as kelp. In addition, I also have a project where I use the SeaBee infrastructure to look at algae that live on bottoms that are built of lime. They have a very distinct spectrum. We also have some invasive species that are interesting to look at, right now, one is identified as Japanese drifting seaweed.

I see that there are extremely many areas of use for drones and surface vessels. I think it’s a whole new world that opened when I started using drones. You get a completely different degree of coverage. I have always been very fascinated by ROVs and underwater vehicles, so that was a bit of what made me decide to stay in Trondheim and do a master’s in Trondheim because of the technology that is available up here. I couldn’t imagine being a marine biologist without the specialized knowledge I have gained using this technology. I can’t imagine myself as a marine biologist without these tools, because I use a lot of it in my everyday life. Almost nothing of what I did on my master’s degree, for example, could have been done without an underwater drone. Without that infrastructure, I couldn’t have answered the questions that I wanted to address during my fellowship.

I have learned a lot from others in the SeaBee project and have been very inspired by them too, not only in the field that I work in, but in other fields that also come into and are used in infrastructure. I am very happy that I had the opportunity to use Seabee technology. It has been very exciting to learn about the otter UV, learning to use it was a very masterful feeling. Then I learned a lot as a field engineer, a skill that I have used further. Learning new things outside the field and how to do it yourself has been a great inspiration. I think the people in SeaBee are just as important as the technology in SeaBee.

To learn more about Malin’s work at SeaBee, watch her talk on YouTube here!