Our Team

Graham Patterson, MSc, MPP

Executive Director

After more than a decade working in healthcare policy and nonprofit program management, Graham’s career trajectory changed during a dive trip where he witnessed the mass bleaching of a coral reef. As a long-time diver, watching a vibrant ecosystem collapse into a mass die-off was a pivotal moment that pushed him to refocus his work on ocean conservation.

Graham began working on coral restoration and monitoring initiatives across the Caribbean and Southeast Asia, becoming a certified scuba instructor along the way. Through this experience, he recognized an untapped resource: dive professionals. While they facilitate millions of introductory ocean experiences and observe reefs daily, they lacked a unified framework to protect these ecosystems. Seeing this as a critical missed opportunity, Graham partnered with his co-founder, Tamara, to help turn this potential into positive ocean outcomes.

To bridge the gap between policy and science, Graham returned to academia. He now holds a Master of Science in Marine Science alongside a Master of Public Policy and an undergraduate degree in International Development. His work focuses on designing conservation projects that connect scientists, dive operators, and local communities to deliver measurable, scalable results for coral reefs, and ensuring that the ocean policy world and those on the front lines operate in close partnership.

Tamara Silverstone

Executive Chair and Project Lead

For as long as she can remember, Tamara has been known simply as "the ocean girl." Growing up near the coast and diving since age nine, her life has been defined by the sea. These early underwater adventures took her to many beautiful places, but they also revealed a troubling shift: vibrant reefs were increasingly replaced by plastic pollution and distressed coral.

Determined to turn her passion into a solution, Tamara dedicated her career to marine conservation. She holds a degree in Environmental Science and Sustainability and manages REEF Scuba projects in the Coral Triangle. There, she empowers local communities and divers with the scientific skills needed to not just explore their reefs, but to actively monitor, protect, and restore them.

Katrina McPherson

Scientific Coral Restoration Lead

From her first dive in the ocean at 8 years old, Kat was captivated by the underwater world. She spent many years travelling the globe and volunteering with various NGOs, including Reef Check Australia and the CoreSea Lab in Thailand.

In 2018, she completed a master’s degree in Marine Environmental Management at the University of York. Her research focused on coral restoration and reproduction, with fieldwork conducted at the MaRHE Centre in the Maldives and the Hawai'i Institute of Marine Biology. Since then, Kat has been working in coral conservation as a Scientific Diver and Research Coordinator, and is currently the Head of Research at Livingseas Foundation, Indonesia. In her free time, she enjoys yoga and hiking.

Paul Lucky

Chief Financial Officer

Paul has always been a vocal supporter of the causes he believes in, and was happy to bring his expertise to the REEF Scuba team. He focuses on keeping the books in order and helping facilitate the growth of the organization. He loves being part of "the wild ride" of building an organization and helping it scale.

Ayat Aji

Social Media and Listenership Growth Lead

Ayat Aji joins the team with a mission to prove that ocean health and human health are inextricably linked. Leveraging her background in Health Science, she translates complex ecological issues into personal, urgent narratives that resonate with a broad public.

A Syrian creative living in Lebanon, Ayat is instrumental in helping REEF Scuba engage diverse, non-traditional audiences across cultural divides. She leads our digital growth with a commitment to high standards, constantly propelling the organization to find new voices and operate at the highest level of engagement.

Justine Wollman, MPH

Research and Partnership Coordinator

Justine has always loved being around the ocean and realized that a unique focus area might be the connection between public health and ocean health. Justine holds a Master's of Public Health from Tulane University. The primary focus of her work is the connection between people's health outcomes and the health of the environments where they live. She now manages research and opportunity building.

Ronairee Flores

Outreach and Special Projects Coordinator

Ronairee is a statistician and activist, assisting a variety of non-profit organizations in the pursuit of their missions. She joined the REEF Scuba team, where she manages outreach, volunteer coordination, and oversees special projects. She looks forward to contributing her diverse skill set to help expand people's knowledge of the ocean, and their passion for saving it.

Occasional Staff & Volunteers

Rishitha Bommera

With a background in Business Analytics, Rishitha is interested in building thoughtful, data-informed solutions with meaningful impact. At REEF Scuba, she supports the CoralID project by evaluating how AI can improve coral identification reliability.

Neeraj Buneeti

Neeraj found his way to ocean conservation through a belief that complex systems always have patterns worth uncovering. At REEF Scuba, he trained machine learning models to identify individual dolphins from twenty years of field sightings.

Bennath Chillingworth

After her master’s in Marine Ecosystems and Governance, Bennath has led coral restoration and community outreach initiatives, alongside developing partnerships and securing grants to grow conservation impact. She now supports REEF Scuba by contributing to newsletters, blogs, and grant research.

Emily Pokou

Emily Pokou is a podcast producer for REEF Scuba and she combines her background in marine science with storytelling to create engaging and informative audio content. She is dedicated to highlighting ocean issues and inspiring positive environmental change through accessible media.

Silvia Bellin

Silvia is a biologist with a passion for conservation and a creative eye for website design and visual storytelling. She enjoys turning ideas into engaging digital experiences and is currently supporting REEF Scuba with their website and graphics.

Helena Arenales

Helena is a Brazilian biologist who has worked across zoology, ecology, and botany, and focuses on plant physiology and educational material development. As an illustrator and science communicator, she creates resources that translate complex scientific concepts into accessible content.

Nicole Castilla

Nicole Castilla is a marine biologist and digital storyteller with a passion for raising awareness about ocean conservation. Hailing from south Florida, Nicole is deeply passionate about protecting her local coastal environments through rescuing sea turtles and conserving the coral reefs.

Raj Shah

Raj is an AI Engineer/Data Scientist with a background in building machine learning and data driven systems, currently working at a healthcare startup. He is passionate about leveraging AI and data to create real-world impact, and at REEF Scuba, he applied AI in marine research.

Contribute your skills as a REEF Scuba volunteer

There are many remote opportunities available, primarily in research, planning, website development, social media management, newsletter writing, and partnership building.

You don’t have to be a marine scientist to get involved.

Everyone can be an Ocean Champion!

Your contribution goes a long way. Thank you.

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A person swimming in clear blue water near a ring of rocks submerged in the water.