Trish White
Trish spent her childhood summers on Cape Cod, but it was a
three-year stay in Japan that brought her to WHOI. While teaching in
Japan, Trish became interested in education, technology, and the
environment. She decided that some day she would return to the Cape,
hoping to work with teens and also to work at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
She attended
graduate school for developmental psychology with a focus on the
environment and technology at Columbia University’s Teachers College.
She then worked as a professional developer in New York City public
schools, helping teachers and principals integrate technology into
classrooms.
When her son was born in 1999, Trish weighed the
options of walks in Central Park over walks on the beaches of Cape Cod.
She quickly chose the latter. Within a few months, she was the youth
director at a local church and a year later was recruited to work with
a senior scientist at WHOI who needed someone with Japanese language
skills, as well as computer expertise, to help establish a new
oceanographic research institute in Japan.
Now she administers
multidisciplinary projects as the center administrator for the
NOAA/WHOI Cooperative Institute for Climate and Ocean Research, and the
Center for Ocean Seafloor Marine Observing Systems. In October 2007,
Trish joined the exceptional WHOI Upper Ocean Processes Group for her
first oceanographic cruise. She hopes the five-day expedition to the
Gulf Stream will be among many at-sea excursions.
Trish and her son live in Cataumet with their pet bird and a collection of orchids and other houseplants.
