David Cervantes

Background

About David Cervantes

I began my career in oceanography as a student worker in the Ocean Chemistry lab of Dr. Andrew Dickson at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. I went from an undergraduate worker to the lab's Chief Analyst and Research Cruise Manager. I have hundreds of days of at sea experience working on research vessels and performing various analyses for GO-SHIP, CLIVAR, NSF, and NOAA. After working for Dr. Dickson for a few years, I decided to move to a new position with Oceanographic Data Facilities in Shipboard Technical Support at Scripps. I made the move to expand my oceanographic knowledge in my analyses and also in the various groups that I work and collaborate with. In my time at Scripps, I attained a vast amount of analytical chemical oceanography experience in dissolved inorganic carbon, total alkalinity, pH, nutrients, dissolved oxygen and salinity measurements both at sea and on land. In 2017, I accepted a position with the Marine Research in Developing Countries research group (now called the Sustainable Development research group) at the Institute of Marine Research in Bergen, Norway as a Department Engineer in Chemical Oceanography to support the EAF-Nansen Programme in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and Norad (Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation). By 2020, I was promoted to Chief Engineer and became the lead chemical oceanographic technician and manager for the CTD chemistry lab on board R/V Dr. Fridtjof Nansen. My responsibilities include planning and participating on research cruises with R/V Dr. Fridtjof Nansen where I train expedition participants from our partner countries in Africa and Asia on chemical analyses and sampling in regards to pH, total alkalinity, dissolved oxygen, salinity, nutrients and chlorophyll a. I also have the responsibility of maintaining the quality assurance of our data in addition to general data collection, processing and report production and transferring this knowledge to our partners.