Understanding the science of geography is information that Dr Marji Puotinen applies to her efforts to protect the sustainability of important coral reef eco-systems.

By studying the impact of different stress factors, such as enormous waves generated by tropical cyclones, as well as climate change and pollution, Marji and her colleagues at the Australian Institute of Marine Science can discover ways to prevent further damage or minimise damage that will occur.

As a small girl, Marji’s interest in the natural world around her was obvious to everyone who knew her – and gave her mum some headaches!

Once, her mother looked out the kitchen window to see her young daughter climbing to the top of a tall tree in the family’s backyard.

From her mother’s perspective, the most worrying question was whether the thin branches at the top of the tree would support Marji’s weight. For Marji, the curiosity about wanting other questions answered – including wondering whether the leaves at the top of the tree would look different than the leaves further down – motivated her to keep climbing, fearlessly.

Marji’s curiosity about the environment around her inspired her to have all kinds of outdoor adventures.

Although she works as a marine scientist now, Marji grew up in inland America, with lots of lakes nearby but no sight of the ocean. She was 10 years old when she finally saw a beach for the first time. For the young girl who had read articles about oceanic discoveries in her grandfather’s National Geographic magazines with passionate interest, seeing the vastness of the sea and feeling the way the waves washed over her body is a memory that has stayed with her for life.

The ’fancy title’ she has now means that she is a research scientist who works with marine biologists as a geographer, to help maximise the value of the data they collect.

From her office in Perth, Western Australia, Marji’s daily working life includes drawing on data to predict what living organisms live on the sea floor.

There is no way, of course, that scientists can send a camera down to explore every square metre of the ocean floor, so by using modelling data that analyses sections of the ocean that have been explored, scientists like Marji predict what might live in similar conditions.

For budding scientists that aren’t sure whether a coral reef is a rock, an animal or a plant, the truth is that it’s all three things at the same time.

The underwater ecosystem of a coral reef is a large ridge of rock that is made from the skeletons of coral. Coral are marine invertebrate animals (animals without a backbone). Individually, they are known as the most common of all coral reef animals. Thousands of these polyps live together and shed calcium carbonate exoskeletons. Over long periods of time, these exoskeletons create the reef structure.

The most common – and abundant – type of algae growing on the reef is zooxanthellae.

Zooxanthellae live inside the tissues of coral and help hard corals produce calcium carbonate to build the reef. Through photosynthesis (the conversion of light energy to chemical energy), zooxanthellae provide food and oxygen to the coral.

The effects of climate change and an increase in ocean temperature can be deadly for the sensitive zooxanthellae. When cyclone waves come along, they can smash up the coral’s safe rocky home that has taken so long to create. But the waves created by tropical cyclones they can help the reef, too, by churning deeper, cooler water, over the over-heated coral.

As part of the reef restoration program, Marji and her scientist colleagues help think of creative ways to address the issue, including the development of heat-resistant strains of zooxanthellae that would not see the reef bleached in the same harmful way.

For Marji, the mission to help protect the reef is important work that she is proud to be part of.

Her advice for young girls who are keen to explore a STEM career is to remember that it’s more important to be brave, rather than perfect.

In science, the number one way to learn is to allow yourself the chance to make mistakes. Then, if your research eventually leads to a positive breakthrough, you might become a problem-solver who can help protect Earth – and all the life that lives on it.

Dr Marji Puotinen’s work as a Spatial / Ecological Data Scientist (Sustainable use of NW marine ecosystems), focuses on data communication via the Australian Marine Parks Science Atlas.