From Fashion to Marine Biologist: An Interview with Flossy Barraud
By Kath Whittey
For many of us our route into marine science is often convoluted and quite often, actually, unexpected! Flossy was embarking on a career in the fashion industry and somehow ended up swimming with manta rays and falling in love with the ocean! She is now researching ways to engage more women and girls to follow suit and engage with the ocean.
Flossy Barraud. Photo Credit: Simon Hilbourne from Manta Trust
Hey! Tell us a bit about yourself.
Hi! I’m Flossy, and I’m currently a PhD student at the University of Plymouth. I am doing my PhD in collaboration with the Manta Trust, a global manta ray research and conservation charity that I’ve worked with in a community education and manta ray research context for about five years. For the PhD, I will explore women’s access to the ocean, in particular the gender gap between how much time women and girls spend in the ocean recreationally (connecting to the ocean) compared to men and boys. I will focus on tropical states with large ocean areas, including the Maldives and Indonesia. I’m also going to be working with women in these case study countries to develop and trial community-led solutions – such as local women training as swimming and snorkelling instructors - therefore able to connect others in their communities to the ocean for years to come.
Having fun on a fieldtrip with Maldives Moodhu Madharusaa - Ocean School students. Photo Credit: Manta Trust
How did you get to where you are now?
I had to try a lot of things before I found my dream career. At school, I wanted to be a fashion designer as I loved drawing, and luckily I got a place at Northumbria University studying Fashion Design. I lasted a couple of weeks before changing to Fashion Marketing, and then a year before I decided it wasn’t for me. I then started an undergrad in Childhood and Disability Studies – I’d always loved kids and working with people from different backgrounds. I really enjoyed studying the Disabled Peoples Movement and working with a women’s mental health group, and learnt a huge amount about working with marginalised groups of people.
About halfway through that course, I got really into reading about marine conservation online, and saved up to go to Honduras one summer to learn to dive and do an internship with the Whale Shark and Oceanic Research Centre. I met so many inspiring people who were studying marine biology or working in the field, and completely fell in love with diving. After a lot of rejections, I finally got into a MSc in Marine Environmental Management with the University of York in 2016, and what I was now certain was my dream career started to become a reality!
Oceanic Manta in Fuvahmulah Maldives 2021. Photo Credit: Simon Hilbourne from Manta Trust
That must have been quite a jump from one discipline to another?!
Yes! The course was incredible for me as someone who hadn’t studied this stuff before, especially because they took on students from a range of backgrounds (not just marine bio/zoology) which brought varied and exciting perspectives to the student group.
In 2017, we had to do a placement and I was struggling to find one as I had little relevant experience. I told my tutor I was interested in working with seals, or with children. Luckily, Dr Guy Stevens, co-founder of the Manta Trust, was finishing up his PhD at York at the time and was looking to expand the Maldivian Manta Ray Project’s (MMRP; founding project of Manta Trust) marine education programme. I met with him, and shortly afterwards was en-route to the Maldives for a 3-month internship.
Swimming with mass feeding reef manta rays in Hanifaru Bay. Photo Credit: Liquid salt divers
Flossy and Mads conducting manta ray research in Hanifaru Bay. Photo Credit: Baa Atoll Biosphere Reserve
Wow that’s an amazing experience! How did you find it?
I had an incredible time! I learnt a lot, fell in love with mantas, and worked with the Education Manager to design and conduct a marine education programme with a local school. It was a dream come true to combine my passions and to be able to show others how special the ocean is, and it was during these 3 months that I first observed that many Maldivian girls hadn’t swum or snorkelled before. About 10 months later I got my dream job as Education Officer, then Manager with the MMRP, and worked on manta research and with communities (delivering marine outreach with numerous schools and leading the Baa Atoll Manta Festival) until 2021, when I returned to the UK to manage the Manta Trust’s global education initiatives as part of the core team, designing and launching our Education Portal.
Celebrations after a womens day snorkelling lesson in the Maldives. Photo Credit: Manta Trust
So how did you go from working with the Manta Trust to doing your PhD?
I wrote up my research project and passion – exploring women’s ocean access - into a proposal, gained support from the Manta Trust and the University of Plymouth, and spent over a year securing enough funding to get started. After a lot of application-writing, I was lucky to gain funding from generous donors and the incredible COMO Foundation and Enjoolata Foundation. And now I am here in Plymouth, doing my own research on a topic that I really care about, and I couldn’t be happier.
I will use all of my learnings to write a strategy outlining ways to improve women’s access to the ocean in different contexts, and evidencing why more women should access the water. From my initial discussions with women around the world, impacts of accessing the ocean include improving access to livelihoods, conservation mindsets and grassroots conservation initiatives, confidence, wellbeing, sense of community, safety, and equality.
Theory of change flow chart
Can you explain more about what your PhD entails?
My PhD will entail a few different things, and I’m just getting started (3-4 years to go!) so these things may well evolve, but this is the jist of it:
Reading! Finding out what research has already been done that looks into ocean access, ocean recreation and/or gender.
Collecting evidence: in how many places do women not engage with the ocean (swim, snorkel, surf etc.) as much as men; what are the impacts of this; what are the benefits of more women engaging with the ocean? This will involve a widely distributed survey as well as more focused research with community-members from case study countries.
Collaboration: working with organisations and individuals all over the world to learn more about barriers and mediators to ocean access, about different projects underway to give women opportunities to access the sea, and to trial new initiatives. I have connected with people in about 20 large ocean states so far and learnt so much from each one. Case study sites may include: Indonesia, Mozambique, Kiribati, Palau, Timor-Leste, Comoros, Tanzania, the Bahamas, Barbados, St Martin, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and more.
I'm passionate about engaging girls with the ocean. Photo Credit: Yaniu Mohamed from Manta Trust
As part of her PhD work Flossy will be developing and trialling a swim instructor programme with Maldivian women and their communities. Up to 26 women will train as swimming instructors and a network of local mentors and businesses will be created, to support the instructors in developing school programmes and swim/snorkeling schools. The aim is for Maldivian women to plan the programme in the best way for their communities, to enable more adults and children, especially women and girls, to access the ocean for years to come! If this model is successful, Flossy aims to work with local organisations to replicate and upscale similar programmes in other regions of the Maldives and the world.
Girls love the water. Photo Credit: Flossy Barraud from Manta Trust