Evelyn Monroe Neill

Ocean Advocate and
Program Director

Co-Founder

Evelyn Neill, the child of a science teacher and an engineer, found that she inherited a passion for nature, a gift of memory and a predilection to be a writer. As a teenager, she had a profound experience at a summer program at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab. There, seining in the life-changing hydrogen-sulfide stench of marsh mud and trolling around the bay in a bucket of bolts shrimp trawler, she observed and inhaled the gifts of the ocean.

Later in college when she worked for Seacamp in the Florida Keys, amongst the future scientists and science educators, she ran the visitors’ day events and planned all the evening programs. In short, though impassioned by coral communities and mangrove communities and fish taxonomy, she was responsible for the “camp” part of Seacamp. She has come to accept the unique quality of her passion like the Hawaiian nene accepts that he’s a goose that can’t fly. One applies one’s gifts where one can.

Throughout life, she has described herself as a biologist groupie, an avid naturalist, or an absurdly scientific creative person. But as for a career, she fell into advertising and over the last 20 years has been first an advertising writer, a creative director and an executive creative director. She has created ads for Nike, Microsoft, Coke, Westin Hotels, United Technologies, ITT, Knight Trading, Sandler O’Neill and Ian Schrager Hotels. She oversaw ads in Pakistan, India, Asia, all of Europe, including a stint at an outpost in Amsterdam. And her last advertising job was that of President of Creative at Doremus Advertising in NY, a hundred-year-old agency that began as part of the Dow Jones.

Advertising has taught her much about the absolute staggering power of communication. And it has turned a desire to communicate about nature and conservation into calling. And that is where her partner in life, Dr. James Bruce Neill comes into the picture. Together the two of them have ambled for many years through thoughts of creating a school to teach children about the ocean. And finally, they came to the same conclusion – if this dream is to become a reality it requires full dedication and passion. Fortuitously, they realized they have both and the timing is right. The rest of the story is what they will build with, they hope, your involvement.

Leah Biery

Ocean Advocate

Leah grew up on Lake Norman in North Carolina, but spent many summers on Sanibel Island as a child, exploring the beaches and mangrove forests with her father and a dip net. Later, she learned to snorkel and scuba dive, and fell in love with marine ecosystems while exploring them on sailing trips with her family.

She studied Zoology and Nonprofit Management at North Carolina State University and spent a semester of college studying wildlife management and baboons in Tanzania. It was there that she realized the importance of her experience in both both terrestrial and marine environments to her ability to promote sound conservation. 

Leah has worked as a camp instructor at Sanibel Sea School in the past. She is currently producing a variety of public education materials that will teach residents of Florida and other Gulf Coast states about the importance of protecting our local and global marine resources for the future.

Making science accessible to the average citizen is something Leah is passionate about, and she plans to spend her life promoting conservation through a career that combines science, writing, and education. Leah’s hobbies and interests include travel, learning, exercise, and making the world a safer place for fish.

Leah is currently on an educational sabbatical leave to attend graduate school at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. At UBC she is using math to save the sharks of the world.

Michelle Beumer

Ocean Advocate and Environmental Educator

Michelle spent her early childhood in New Jersey and was constantly at the beach with her parents. While she was just barely able to walk she would run head first into the ocean and roll and frolic in the waves. She would tell her Mom that when she grew up she wanted to be a mermaid. Unfortunately, the Jersey Shore summers came to a close and the family moved to a suburb outside of Atlanta before Michelle was ten. Even though there was no ocean nearby, she was in love with everything aquatic.

The family also loved the beach and they ventured to the Florida coast every spring and summer. Michelle was still involved with the ocean and would jump in and pull out fish, shells, crabs and whatever she could get her little hands on.  Because of her obvious love for creatures of the sea, Michelle received a degree in Marine Biology from Spring Hill College, a Jesuit school in Mobile, Alabama. Wanting to put her scientific mind to the test, she spent almost a year as a research intern at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab. It was there that she recalled her previous years as a camp counselor and realized her true calling was to work with the ocean and teach kids everything she loved the most.

With teaching still in her heart, Michelle travelled to Camp Orkila, in the San Juan Islands in Washington State and became an outdoor environmental educator. This job combined her love for teaching with a small element of the sea. Although the program at Camp Orkila was very impressive, it was not solely Marine Biology based and Michelle still yearned for the ocean. During Christmas of 2009, she worked at Sanibel Sea School for Peace Camp. Captivated by the island's beauty and diverse ecosystem, Michelle found all that she had been looking for -- the happy medium of the salt water and teaching children. She is now an instructor of the Sanibel Sea School Captiva location and loves every moment of it. Working at Sanibel Sea School combines her favorite things in life all into one large sea of fun.

Kate Pozeznik

Ocean Advocate and Environmental Educator

Kate spent her formative years paddling, fishing, swimming, and floating in the cool glacial lakes of Michigan and Northern Indiana.  A trip or two to sunny Southwest Florida as a college student was the only motivation Kate needed to pack a few well-loved belongings into her car and move to the coastal area she now calls home.

Kate’s passion for educating children emerged at an early age; she loved to play “school,” coercing her younger brother and sister to fill the role of students.  Fortunately for Kate’s siblings, she decided to pursue a college degree in English Education to become a “real” teacher. 

Florida’s sub-tropical natural environment and biodiversity captivated Kate and inspired her to pursue a career in environmental education.  As a resident of Sanibel, she was pleased to join the Sanibel Sea School in the role of a Summer Camp Intern in 2010 before becoming a year-round educator and Curriculum Coordinator.  She loves having the ocean as her classroom and when kids experience “aha!” moments in the field.

Kate is passionate about facilitating connections between her young students and the natural world around them through fun, hands-on activities in marine environments.  She has worked as a Campus Naturalist for Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU) guiding college students on experiential field trips through campus conservation land trails and at Audubon Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary in Naples.  In addition to her role as an educator at Sanibel Sea School, Kate engages in Environmental Studies graduate coursework at FGCU where she also writes and edits for the Center for Environmental and Sustainability Education.

Jenna Sullivan

Ocean Advocate and Environmental Educator

Growing up in Oregon, Jenna spent countless hours exploring the tidepools and estuaries of the Oregon coast. She was also lucky enough to have grandparents that lived in Cape Cod and in Vancouver, British Columbia, allowing her to spend summers exploring and frolicking at the beach with cousins. She feels that the beach is her natural environment. Her innate interest in the ocean, born during these carefree childhood escapades, has developed into an academic interest that she plans to turn into a career of ocean exploration and advocacy.

Since graduating in 2009, Jenna spent a year teaching 10^th and 12^th grade biology on a remote coral atoll in the Marshall Islands. This experience inspired personal growth in many ways, but most concretely deepened her love for and commitment to teaching and the ocean.

Jenna is increasingly motivated to communicate an understanding and appreciation of marine systems to people outside the scientific research community. She is delighted to be teaching, writing, learning, and hanging out in the Gulf with Sanibel Sea School, helping people fall in love with the ocean and let the ocean enrich their lives as it enriches hers.

J. Bruce Neill, Ph.D.

Ocean Advocate and
Executive Director

Co-Founder

Bruce’s passion for the ocean and natural exploration began at an early age. Growing up in Miami, he snorkeled the seagrass beds, mangroves and coral reefs of southern Florida and the Bahamas before first attending school. His family spent countless hours fishing the Gulf Stream and exploring life in and around drifting seaweed communities. As a high school student he became fascinated with birds, which ultimately led him to obtain a degree in zoology at the University of Georgia.

After working as a technician for a blue-water oceanographer, he attended the University of Guam Marine Laboratory and received a master’s degree in the biology of coral reefs. There, he studied differences in territorial behaviors between closely related sea urchin species. He went on to obtain a Ph.D., studying genetics, evolution and conservation biology at Montana State University where he used emerging DNA technology to evaluate the survival probabilities of small bird populations.

He held academic positions at liberal arts colleges, field schools, and community colleges. His true academic passion is teaching – and it shows in his teaching enthusiasm. Recently, he has turned his attention to a younger audience, teaching at several private elementary schools in the New York area, and in the American Museum of Natural History Science and Nature Program.

He believes that his best contribution to conservation is to convey complex scientific findings to the typical person.  In particular, he likes to expose youngsters to the joys of discovering nature. Age-appropriate knowledge and experience of the natural world is a gift we can give our children. It is Bruce’s hope that by sharing the wonders of the sea with younger kids, he will be able to provide them a lifetime of discovery, and a passion for stewardship.

His most recent undertaking is as a co-founder of Sanibel Sea School, a non-profit foundation dedicated to promoting marine conservation through experiential education.

Sanibel Sea School: where every day is a field trip.

Dina Craig

Business Manager

For Dina, Sanibel Island is not only a sanctuary, it’s been her home for more than a dozen years.  She loves to explore the island’s fascinating ecosystems and with two wonderfully insightful and inquisitive daughters, she understands what an indelible imprint it can leave on kids as they prepare to champion important conservation efforts for our next generation.

Dina’s background includes marketing and PR experience throughout the travel and tourism industry, with some interesting detours along the way.  After learning the corporate ropes at IBM in New York, she was lured by the Florida sun and spent the next six years sporting mouse ears with key marketing and communication roles at The Walt Disney World Resort.  An opportunity to work for the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games followed, and she helped welcome the world to the 1996 Summer Olympics by spearheading several of their major marketing efforts.  By the time her daughters arrived on the scene shortly thereafter, she and her husband had discovered Sanibel and decided to slow down, put down roots and enjoy life at an island pace.  Dina has spent the years since cherishing the role of “mom,” working at luxury resorts throughout the area, and most recently, discovering a new world in the non-profit realm, learning how passion and advocacy can fuse to create a truly powerful impact. 

As a man who sketched a rather famous rodent once said:  “You can design, create and build the most wonderful place in the world.  But it takes people to make the dream a reality.”  Dina is thrilled to be able to work with Sanibel Sea School’s many supporters in taking our collective dreams one step further.

Brendan Schaffer

Ocean Advocate and Environmental Educator

Brendan grew up in near the Delaware Water Gap in New Jersey, always going on adventures with his father from hiking through an abandoned fish hatchery near his home or catching crayfish under rocks in the local river.  He spent much of his childhood observing animals, reading about them in books, and drawing them with his father.

He studied Ecology and Marine Science at Rutgers University, traveling to their field station in Tuckerton to do research while also frequenting the Jersey Shore helped him realize his passion for the ocean.  At Rutgers, Brendan learned the many problems our ocean faces today and was determined to help educate others and hopefully inspire them like his professors had.

Brendan is passionate about helping children learn about the biota of the ocean through art.  Studying an animal’s form really gives you an idea of how they live and thrive in their environment.  By making careful observation, he helps students learn while having fun as well.  In his spare time, Brendan loves to paint the many different birds that stop by the water’s edge around Sanibel.