ABOUT.
BORN OF THE OCEAN.
Alannah Vellacott is a marine ecologist, science communicator and ocean advocate with 14 years of experience working in marine research, conservation and education in The Bahamas and The Caribbean.
As a Bahamian living in a small community that bordered an expansive mangrove creek system, Alannah grew up with the ocean as the backdrop to her childhood. Exploring the mangroves, fishing with her neighbours, and learning the science behind the ecosystem she lived in from her father, a former biology teacher, formed the base of Alannah’s love for the ocean.
After graduating high school, her unbridled passion was given direction and purpose through a scholarship to attend the Cape Eleuthera Island School and an internship with the Shark Research and Conservation department at the adjacent Cape Eleuthera Institute. This experience spring-boarded Alannah’s career in marine research. Since then, Alannah has made the rounds working and volunteering for non-profit environmental conservation organizations including the Bahamas Reef Environment Education Foundation, the Bahamas National Trust, Community Conch, The Nature Conservancy and most recently, Perry Institute for Marine Science.
A PADI scuba instructor with 20 years of experience in diving, Alannah has travelled The Bahamas and The Caribbean working on a variety of marine research and outreach projects. Some of her experiences include conducting AGRRA coral and fish surveys, reef restoration, conch population research, shipwreck mapping, and blue hole ethnography. Alannah received her Bachelor of Science degree in Biological Sciences with emphasis in Ecology in 2017 at South Dakota State University and plans to pursue a graduate’s degree in Marine Ecology in the near future.
MARINE
SCIENCE.
Currently:
CORAL RESTORATION SPECIALIST
AT CORAL VITA
Currently, Alannah is the Coral Restoration Specialist at Coral Vita, a company whose vision is to restore our world’s dying coral reefs by creating a global network of land-based coral farms.
Along with daily maintenance, observation and data collection at the Grand Bahama based coral farm, Alannah works with leading experts on perfecting coral husbandry and propagation techniques to grow corals that are resilient to the world’s changing climate, and that when outplanted, will bolster coral reef resilience and biodiversity.
You can help Alannah and Coral Vita protect our coral reefs by adopting one of their corals! Visit the Coral Vita website below.
APPEARANCES.
TV & SOCIAL MEDIA
As a science communicator, ocean advocate, and experienced diver, Alannah has been featured in documentaries, inspirational shorts, and science-based television shows.
In an onscreen role as a Principal Diver in the documentary, ‘Enslaved’, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Afua Hirsch, Alannah told the story of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade through diving shipwrecks involved in the trade of African captives and goods. Operating under the non-profit group ‘Diving with A Purpose’, Alannah investigated untold stories of the slave trade through diving in Costa Rica, Jamaica Lake Michigan, the English and Bristol Channel, and by trekking the jungles and sailing the rivers of Suriname. Enslaved aired on the Epix channel on CBC, BBC, and National Geographic in October 2020. Alannah also regularly appears as a marine ecologist in Discovery Channel’s Shark Week. In 2020 Alannah appeared in ‘Adam Devine’s Secret Shark Lair’ and this year in ‘Tiffany Haddish Does Shark Week’ and ‘Monster Sharks of Andros’. In each show Alannah was a technical assistant to the principal investigators leading the shark research. She has educated celebrity guests on the importance of sharks to ocean health and introduces them to shark research through taking them on shark dives to collect data valuable to their protection.