Marine scientist and author Wallace ‘J’ Nichols—who popularized ‘Blue Mind,’ the science of why water makes us happier and healthier—talks sea turtles, sea‑level rise, disaster economies, and more. He shares lessons from Ocean Revolution, Indigenous youth, and why protecting our emotional resilience is essential to sustaining ocean work. This episode honors his legacy and invites us to keep ‘wishing each other water.’

Carlos Mallo Molina, trained as a civil engineer, discovered a passion for the ocean that led him to found Innoceana, an organization with a mission to protect critically important areas of the ocean. Carlos’ mother “Mama Rosa” encouraged her son as he made a career. She proudly traveled with him in 2025 to receive a Goldman Environmental Prize for his work to halt a port project that threated marine life in the Canary Islands. Carlos leads many initiatives to engage the public in ocean conservation. For example, in Costa Rica, he is investigating the stresses of global warming and working with the local community to protect the coral.

Bonnie Blaylock author of The Water Women, a novel that explores the bonds between mothers and daughters. The threads they create from mussels are woven into a special cloth, an activity that binds the women to one another.

Maya van Rossum is the Delaware Riverkeeper, founder of Green Amendments

for the Generations, author of The Green Amendment: The People's Fight to

Secure a Clean, Safe, and Healthy Environment and a lawyer. She has devoted

her energies to securing that every state has a Green Amendment, an

amendment that assures our rights to a healthy environment by enshrining

them in a state's constitution.

Indigenous Hawaiian marine science factors in humility and community

Kaileia Duriano

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Kaileia Duriano is an Indigenous Hawaiian trained in both Hawaiian cultural

practices and academic marine biology. She discusses the differences

between Indigenous and academic practices and what needs to be done to

maintain Hawaii's natural beauty and abundance.

Susan Gardner, Director of the Ecosystem Division for the United Nations

Environmental Program, negotiates global environmental treaties to protect

the world's natural resources and works on inclusion of previously

underrepresented voices.

Megan Smylie, Sea Otter Program Manager, Aquarium of the Pacific, discusses

the Sea Otter Surrogacy Program, a program rehabilitating rescued sea otter

pups and releasing them back into the wild.

Andi Cross of Edges of Earth, a company based in Perth Australia provides

strategies for companies to achieve tangible solutions in collaboration for

organizations on the front line of the climate crisis.

Ashley Kidd cofounder and conservation program manager of the Sunflower

Star Laboratory in California. She discusses sunflower sea stars: what they

are, why they are critically endangered, how her laboratory is trying to

restore them to the wild, and why this is important.