Angela Zepp is currently a master’s degree candidate at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories in Central California working towards a career in marine science. Originally from Missouri, she developed her love for diving in a less traditional method. Her family went to Bass Pro Shops when she was a young girl and there, standing in front of fake deer and camouflaged gear, she watched a diver enter a freshwater trout tank for a maintenance dive. The diver scrubbed the glass surrounded by fish and gave her a high five through the glass! She was immediately enthralled and decided then that she wanted to become a diver. 

She attended Humboldt State University and studied Marine Biology and Zoology where she discovered their very intensive Scientific Diving program. She honed in her skills through her Open Water, Advanced and Rescue courses but once she reached the Scientific Diving course, things changed for her. Her Scientific Diving course taught her that her passions for diving and science could be combined. Now completely hooked on being underwater, she worked at the Alaska Sealife Center as the dive intern. She learned to dive in a drysuit, conduct feeding shows through a full face mask and got to dive in the exhibits almost every day. 

Once she graduated, she spent 6 months working at Camp Emerald Bay on Catalina Island. During the spring, she dove all around the island collecting various specimen for the aquarium. In summer, she became a Boy Scout Counselor and tried her hand at teaching marine science classes. Despite her classes being comprised of unruly 7-15 year-olds, she learned she had a flare for teaching. Angela spent her off day biking or kayaking into Two Harbors to get her Divemaster certification. 

  In Fall 2013, she began her graduate school career at Moss Landing Marine Labs working under the Diving Safety Officer and Research Faculty member, Dr. Diana Steller. While there she’s worked on several in depth class projects such as underwater mapping of Damselfish on a remote island in Baja California, the effects of water temperature and infection rate of sea star wasting disease on bat stars and an underwater caging experiment looking at the effects of bat stars and snails effects on the acid weed, Desmarestia ligulata. She’s helped out various colleagues in the field and is currently working on her Master’s examining the effects of temporal changes in pH and grazing in the life history of Desmarestia ligulata.

Angela is now a NAUI instructor and works as the Assistant Diving Safety Officer at Moss Landing Marine Labs which is a multifaceted job marrying her passions for diving, science and teaching. In her spare time she sings in a local community choir, competes in monthly races, practices dog training with her 3 year old dog, Zissou and volunteers as a diver at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. She’s come full circle from Bass Pro Shops and now gets to be the diver on the other side of the glass!