// NATURE NEWS — SPAZIO & SCIENZA
How I balance my life as a professional surfer and a university researcher
Cliff Kapono is a professional surfer and marine conservation scientist.
Search author on:
PubMed
Google Scholar
Cliff Kapono enjoys professional surfing as an adjunct to his academic career. Credit: Nani Welch Keliihoomalu for Nature
During my graduate studies at the University of California, San Diego, long hours in the laboratory were often stressful, and not just because of the research. Most of my anxiety came from looking out the window at perfect surfing conditions and realizing I didn’t have much time to finish my experiments and leave while the ‘waves were firing’.
Several years on, I am now an assistant professor at the School of Ocean Futures at Arizona State University (ASU), working from Hilo, Hawaii, where I balance scientific research with my second job: travelling the world as a non-competitive professional surfer. Also known as a free surfer, I ride a variety of board designs — from conventional wooden surfboards to modern big-wave ‘guns’ — and produce social-media content, such as photos and videos, in exchange for endorsement opportunities.
My research is also deeply connected to the ocean. I study coral microbiomes, sampling the community of microorganisms living on and in the coral before and after environmental stress to improve understanding of reef health and the sea-bed formations that create waves, referred to as surf breaks. In May, my colleagues and I reported on the importance of creating a framework to analyse systems with environmental, social and cultural components to protect surf ecosystems1.
In my faculty position, I work in nine-month appointments, and I am permitted to spend a number of work hours each calendar year on non-conflicting outside business. I spend roughly 85% of my work year on research and teaching and 15% on surfing assignments.
Many careers are no longer confined to a single discipline or identity, and some of the most meaningful work now happens at the intersection between different skills, communities and ways of thinking. Surfing shapes the questions I want to ask as a scientist, while science provides me with ways to understand and protect ocean environments. When I was a student, I used to worry that I would have to choose between surfing and science. Today, my career exists because I didn’t.
When I graduated from high school in 2005, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders made up less than 0.2% of all science, technology, engineering and mathematics degree graduates in the United States. Today, that number remains at only 0.3%2. As a Native Hawaiian kid, targeted fellowships and private programmes made university possible for me, covering my tuition and board.
After I started a PhD chemistry programme at the University of California, San Diego, in 2012, my studies became much more demanding. Courses, a teaching-assistant role, fellowship requirements and lab training would keep me on land from sunrise until sundown. Despite being able to see the ocean from nearly every window on campus, it was the time in my life that I felt furthest from it.