Author: FjordPhyto

Dr. Martina Mascioni was born in Ushuaia, Argentina, and then spent her life in the north attending university and working as a researcher at Universidad Nacional de La Plata outside of Buenos Aires. Martina was always fond of life in all its forms, and she decided to study Biology with a Botany orientation to become a plant specialist, but she found herself in love with tiny microalgae along the way and decided to change her scope to marine microalgae. She got her doctorate in 2023. For years, she studied Antarctic ecosystems without ever having visited until 2021, when she finally got to travel there for the first time.

Dr. Allison Cusick was born in Seattle, Washington, and grew up with a thirst for adventure. As a young teenager, she wanted to be an astronaut to travel the furthest reaches of human capability. Her path into science was not straightforward, but she pursued education in STEM fields. In 2013, she was offered a job on an icebreaker to the Ross Sea for a 53-day expedition. Although she had no prior training in oceanography, she was hooked, and this life-changing experience ultimately led her to pursue a Master's degree in Marine Biodiversity & Conservation at Scripps Institution of Oceanography (UC San Diego), where she would go on to develop the FjordPhyto citizen science project and continue her work as a polar oceanographer, receiving her doctorate in Oceanography from the same institution in 2025.