Allison Fundis '03, trustee

Photo credit National Geographic.

Allison Fundis is the chief operating officer for Ocean Exploration Trust, where she draws on diverse backgrounds in science, education, and extensive sea-going experience to engage the science community, students, and the public in telepresence-enabled expeditions aboard the trust’s exploration vessel Nautilus. Since 2006, she has led or participated in 50+ expeditions utilizing a variety of deep-sea technologies and submersibles in the Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, Gulf of California, Caribbean Sea, and Mediterranean Sea. 

Before joining Ocean Exploration Trust in 2013, Fundis worked with the National Science Foundation’s Ocean Observatories Initiative at the University of Washington, where she participated in the planning and installation of the US’s largest cabled seafloor observatory in addition to developing resources and programs for students that utilize the observatory’s real-time data. As a former high school teacher, she remains passionate about making authentic opportunities in STEM available to students, educators, and the public through the trust. In 2019, she was recognized as an innovation and technology delegate for the Academy of Achievement and as an IF/THEN ambassador by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She is a 2020 Fellow National of the Explorers Club and, in 2021, was named a National Geographic Society Emerging Explorer. She holds an MS in marine geology from University of Florida and a BA in human ecology from College of the Atlantic.