Sherry Palacios, Ph.D.

Sherry can trace her love of marine science to the moment she looked at a squid under a dissecting microscope. The surface of the mollusk was dotted with blue-black splotches called chromatophores, and to her astonishment they weren’t holding still but firing like some sort of lightning display! She was hooked. That one eighth-grade field trip in the sweltering heat off Port Aransas, Texas unfolded into a career as a field scientist in biological oceanography.

Sherry has worked at sea and in remote and urban field locations throughout North America and offshore of the United States. Her research focuses on dynamic processes of eastern boundary currents and the development of ocean color algorithms, and she observes and monitors these systems from remote sensing imagery. Remote observations can get you only so far. Hands-on science, or field work, is an essential part of scientific research and an increasingly underfunded area of work. 

Sherry earned her B.A. in biology with a minor in marine science from Smith College, her M.S. in marine science from Moss Landing Marine Laboratories and her Ph.D. in ocean sciences from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She was a NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellowship award winner and completed her fellowship at NASA Ames Research Center, where she continued work as a research scientist and provided capacity building through the NASA ARSET and Indigenous People’s Initiative. Sherry then served as assistant professor at California State University, Monterey Bay — enjoying a teaching role she knew she’d return to since her early-career stint as a Teach for America teacher in rural Arkansas.

Sherry believes strongly that her mission in life is to push the edge of discovery while inspiring and engaging others in hands-on science. She is delighted to be with the Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation where she can live this mission.