The narrator of our Alaska coverage
joins the ship from Scripps Institution of Oceanography. 

Eléna's hometown is Vitoria, Spain and she attended the University of Granada as an undergradate. The Spanish university system differs from the U.S system in several ways. When Eléna was an undergrad in Spain, science majors typically spent five years earning their degrees, chose their majors early on, and did not have general education requirements - unlike most U.S. programs. Eléna's classes lasted six months to a year, and she usually took five or six classes at a time. Although she had many interests in high school she narrowed down her interests to biology and geology. Since geology was a newer degree than biology, with fewer majors competing for scarce jobs, Eléna looked to the future and chose to major in geology. Geology appealed to her love of the outdoors. Since then, the development of the biotech industry has greatly changed the job market for biologists, but she has no regrets.

Like many U.S. undergrads, Eléna spent her junior year studying abroad and she came to UCSD. At UCSD she took courses at the main campus and at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography campus. Professors at Scripps encouraged her to return to pursue a graduate degree, and she returned for graduate school at Scripps right after finishing her bachelor's degree in Spain. Eléna estimates that she will finish her dissertation project this summer in 2001 seeking to find out how and why upwelling systems off southwest Africa are biologically productive. Eléna describes herself as a paleoceanographer, a group of scientists that study the history of the ocean and complex relationships between climate and ocean circulation.

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