Kristin Thoms
Kristin grew up in landlocked Missouri with a passion for writing and an endless fascination with the ocean and its inhabitants, particularly the warm-blooded charismatic kind, marine mammals. Her path materialized after a fateful trip to Sea World at the ripe age of 10 and after watching just eight episodes of a television show called Dolphin Cove.
Journeying straight to the sea, she landed on the west coast of Florida and attended Eckerd College. During her sophomore year, she earned an assistantship through Eckerd’s Dolphin Project and spent sun-drenched summer days on Boca Ciega Bay snapping mug shots of wild bottlenose dolphins.
After earning her bachelor’s degree in marine biology, her path came to a fork She sampled a few courses at the University of South Florida and enrolled in a thesis-writing class. But on the first day, the instructor announced there had been a mistake in the registration book and the class was really “Science Writing 101.” The stars had aligned.
She subsequently enrolled in the University of South Florida’s Science Journalism Program. While working as a graduate assistant, she jumped on the opportunity of a lifetime to sail aboard WHOI’s R/V Atlantis and write about deep-sea hydrothermal vents. Somewhere between the Azores and Bermuda, Thoms interviewed an Alvin pilot who would later become her fiancé.
In grad school, she worked at the Tampa Bay Estuary Program as an outreach assistant and after earning her master’s degree in journalism with an emphasis on marine science and science writing, she worked as an outreach specialist for the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service.
Her path eventually led her to Falmouth, where she currently lives with her fiancé and her beloved Golden Retriever, Josie. She is the communications associate for The Coalition for Buzzards Bay, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the restoration and protection of Buzzards Bay and its watershed.
