John Dindo

“If you talk to field scientists, they’ll probably tell you that television and video games are big detriments to young people learning about the environment. Park rangers tell us that they are seeing fewer and fewer visits by young people. When you are removed from the environment—when you don’t smell the trees and listen to the frogs and crickets—you tend not to care when you read an article or see a movie about the environmental changes that are taking place.”

John Dindo wears a number of different hats at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab (DISL). As assistant director, he helps oversee a facility that includes 60 full-time employees and 42 graduate students from the 21 member four-year colleges and universities in Alabama (including UAB, a charter member). The DISL also features a variety of research and education programs, a coastal policy center, and a public aquarium. As a marine scientist, Dindo focuses his research on the vertebrate ecology of the coastal environment. He studies the population dynamics of large wading birds (herons and egrets), examining the impact of large- and small-scale weather events on mortality.

But perhaps Dindo’s favorite activity centers around Discovery Hall, the marine-education program he created at DISL. Named for the early research vessel Discovery, the program has opened the field of marine science to Alabama elementary- and secondary-school students through hands-on field and laboratory experience. In addition to its programs for K-12 students, Discovery Hall offers teacher training and Elderhostel seminars. More than 15,000 students a year participate in Discovery Hall programs.

On the importance of DISL education programs: “In order to care about the environment, you have to experience it. Our education program is teaching K-12 students about real-world applications of science, technology, and mathematics, using the Alabama coast as a model, rather than using books or a terrestrial system. Kids are fascinated with the ocean and the coast. Many who participate in our programs are seeing the ocean’s edge for the first time. Our goal is to capture that enthusiasm and turn it into a learning session that they will remember. Reading material from a book or reciting text probably doesn’t have an impact on how a young person will act in the future. But if you can get them out there, help them to see the grains of sand as they are moved by waves, it makes a mind impression that lasts. They may not go on to become scientists, but when they are exposed to something like An Inconvenient Truth, the new Al Gore movie about climate change, they are more likely to understand it. They will have a relationship to the message that is going out.”

Governor Bob Riley has declared 2006 the Year of the Outdoors in Alabama, and Dindo is one of 15 people from the state to be named Outdoor Ambassadors.

On his role as an Outdoor Ambassador: “It’s wonderful to talk to people about what makes the Alabama outdoors special. I avidly fish and hunt and hike and boat, and I get to talk to a lot of different groups, people from all over the country, from outdoor writers to Elderhostel groups to students. I want our young people to be knowledgeable about the outdoors because they will be the decision-makers of the future.”

Dindo grew up in Barre, Vermont, and was drafted into the U.S. Air Force in 1967. He was trained in Morse code and was stationed in Alaska to help intercept Soviet messages. He also spent about nine months in Vietnam.

After leaving the military, Dindo returned to Alaska and enrolled at the University of Alaska at Anchorage, earning a B.S. degree in fisheries science. He planned to remain in Alaska to study salmon migration, but research funding was in short supply so he began to look elsewhere for work. His college roommate had been accepted into dental school at UAB and sent Dindo some literature about DISL. That led Dindo to check out the sea lab, and along the way, he met UAB biologist Bob McGregor. Dindo’s interest in salmon migration seemed to mesh nicely with McGregor’s work on the migration of birds, so Dindo was admitted to the DISL graduate program through UAB. He did most of his work at Dauphin Island, but spent nine months in Birmingham, taking classes, teaching, and working as a laboratory assistant.

On his academic interests: “I studied salmon in Alaska, but at UAB my master’s work focused on the striped mullet, a fish that has a behavioral pattern similar to that of salmon, migrating in large schools for reproduction. I continued to have an interest in migration, and for my doctorate, I studied the migration patterns of a colony of herons and egrets on Cat Island, which is about eight miles from the sea lab. The birds migrate from South and Central America for reproduction in the spring. “A key factor on any island, whether you are studying humans, plants, or birds, is the impact of hurricanes. We’ve had two major hurricanes in the past 10 years—Georges and Katrina—that directly impacted the site of my studies. The storms stripped the island of vegetation, and we are developing a proposal to help re-establish the habitat.”

Dindo has developed an interest in creatures that live in the deepest parts of the ocean. He was part of a crew that used the Johnson Sea Link, a four-person submersible, to dive in 2,100 feet of water about 250 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico.

On his deep-sea work: “We spent three days diving in that depth, studying animals that live around areas of methane gas. These are worms, clams, crabs and other animals that exist on sulfur and methane products. Our work was similar to Dr. Robert Ballard’s findings around the smoker vents near the Galapagos Islands, although we worked around cold methane vents while Ballard discovered heated vents. Our dives went to water that was 4 degrees centigrade, with no light, so it is a very harsh environment. It’s not easy to conduct these studies because of the cost of getting down there.”

In 2000, Dindo received the prestigious James Centorino Award from the National Marine Educators Association, a recognition given for distinguished performance in marine education by non-classroom teaching professionals. The UAB School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics honored Dindo as one of its 2006 outstanding alumni. Dindo is quick to say he appreciates the honors, but it is clear that much of his job satisfaction comes from a deeper place.

On the rewards of marine science: “As we speak, I am looking over the Gulf of Mexico at a lighthouse that was built in 1877, and I know that each day here presents something different. I get to go into the field and I get to teach, from kindergarten students to a group of retired paper-mill employees who are coming here next week. The diversity of my work is what makes it so interesting, and that’s what makes me want to keep doing the job.”