What It's Like to Be a Scientist Working on a Cruise Ship in Antarctica
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Annie Davidson
This is the first installment of our new bimonthly column Crews on Cruise, spotlighting the people who work behind the scenes of the world’s most memorable voyages—from bartenders and entertainers to ship captains and expedition leaders.
When Brandi Revels joined Viking in 2021 as the cruise line’s first Chief Scientist, she hadn’t really considered what it would mean to live for months at a time on an expedition vessel—she was just enchanted by the research opportunities, educational outreach, and undeniable lure of traveling to some of the farthest reaches of earth. Dr. Revels received her Master of Science in Oceanography, Chemical and Physical from the University of South Carolina and her Doctor of Science in Geochemistry and Petrology/Analytical Chemistry from ETH Zurich. In her role with Viking, she navigates itineraries throughout Antarctica and the Great Lakes, and, in 2025, the Arctic, joining guests for shore excursions and landings, overseeing field research and leading experiments such as the NOAA weather balloon launch, and delivering lectures on everything from geology to paleoclimatology. We caught up with Dr. Revels in between expeditions to chat about the potential long-term impact of citizen science, why icebergs still blow her mind, and what it’s like to have 250 roommates.
Why did you decide to work on cruise ships?
In the world of science, you are often only speaking to the 20 or 30 people who do what you do; it's a bit of an echo chamber. But I've always thought that communication should be a big part of what we do as scientists. After all, it's often the public who's funding us and if we can't communicate what we're doing with the public, then we're not doing anyone a service. I knew that outreach was a big part of this job, plus I was really eager to work in remote places. A job where I could combine science, travel, and outreach? Sign me up.
My background is in nuclear chemistry and climatology. Guests may know a little piece of that puzzle, but what they've never been exposed to is how long-scale geological processes influence long-scale and short-scale oceanic processes, which influence biology, which influences climate. It’s all connected. When you’re in academia, you’re fighting over minutiae: Does this reaction happen in this way under these circumstances? Guests don’t care about that stuff. They want to know the big-picture scale. For me, it’s quite refreshing to take a step back and think about how these big processes affect each other. [The exchange] is bidirectional too. A lot of the challenges that I have are engineering-based or methodological: You’re in Antarctica and you need some piece of scientific equipment to work. How do I make it do the thing I want it to do? If I get really stumped, I’ll give a presentation with background on the project and the challenges I’m facing. And always a guest knows more than me and we’re able to solve the problem. I’ve had many guests after hours in the lab, taking apart robots or trying to figure out an engineering solution. And it’s funny how humble some of the guests are—like, oh you know, ‘I was the chief engineer for NASA for 20 years, but I don’t know if I could help you.’
What does a typical day on the job look like?
I'm responsible for a team of seven or eight researchers and lecturers, so 50% of my job is admin and organizing enrichment [activities]. We don’t have a cruise director on expedition ships, so instead of entertainment, we have science. When an unexpected sea day happens, it falls on my shoulders to figure out morning, afternoon, and evening lectures, plus two or three workshops in between. It looks like everything happens magically but I plan ahead at the beginning of every voyage for just this reason. I know who’s on my team and what they have to offer. So let’s say John has seven lectures he’s prepared; if I’ve only scheduled him for three, then I have four in my back pocket. That’s the case for everybody that’s on my team: naturalists, biologists, chemists, geologists–they all bring expertise. The other 50% of the time, I’m in the lab or out in the field collecting samples.
It’s a great economic and social experiment that, if it works, could be a whole new model for how to fund science. If we do it right, we could change the world through tourism.
Dr. Brandi Revels, Chief Scientist at Viking
What is your favorite part about this job?
Sharing humbling, awe-inspiring moments with people. Sometimes we're on a Zodiac collecting samples for A, B, or C and a whale is four feet away and it hangs out with us for an hour. Sometimes it’s an unexpected sea day spent studying microplastic samples we collected the day before. Sometimes it’s meeting a woman who wanted to be a scientist but couldn't because she went to school before Title IX was enacted and she gets to spend her voyage being a scientist with me in the lab.
What is the most challenging part about working at sea?
I miss my partner, of course. We live in Zurich, Switzerland and my cadence is two months on, two months off. He was a cruise director for 20 years; when I started this job, there was a large learning curve for living and working on a ship and he’d go, ‘Oh, that’s just ship life.’ He told me to pace myself, because there are no days off. And when you’re in upper management, there are no hours off. Yes, this thing needs to get done. But does it need to be done right now? No. Put it aside.
What is the coolest or weirdest thing about living on a ship?
Having 250 roommates. We have almost a one-to-one crew-to-guest ratio, with about 30 nationalities on board. My immediate team has a Belgian, a Brit, a Scot, and a Kiwi.
What is your favorite place you’ve traveled so far?
Antarctica, of course! Some people really like seeing the penguins and penguins are cute—okay, fine. But I’m a chemist and I really, really like ice. We go out on a Zodiac and I’m just floored by the scale. Because it’s so cold in Antarctica, there's not much evaporation. Without evaporation, there's no precipitation, so it snows very rarely. To see these ice formations that have taken 300 million years to accumulate all these individual layers, and that layering corresponds to climatic variations—like, wow. In many cases, no one has ever laid eyes on that piece of ice and may never again, and that's because they're constantly moving. The icebergs are always changing and when we come back next week, they will look very different. That’s an incredible experience.
What is your favorite place to hang out on board the ship?
The lab! I get a lot of enjoyment from working with a really small team that only does science. We’ll hang out in the lab when we’re not in uniform, just discussing engineering and chemistry problems.
I don’t want to sound cheesy, but this is paving a new way for how science is done. Science is expensive: all the hours it takes to collect samples, analyze data—heck, the cost of going to Antarctica in the first place. Funding is being cut in all directions and it’s economically prohibitive for most scientists; a climate researcher may get to go to Antarctica once in their lives. They collect six days’ worth of samples and that has to tide them over for the next 10 years. I’ve been to Antarctica 50 times! Our ship is going to the same place week after week, month after month, year after year. [Through Viking], we have this incredible opportunity to monitor complex systems like the environment, collecting a lot of data over a long period of time. It’s a great economic and social experiment that, if it works, could be a whole new model for how to fund science. If we do it right, we could change the world through tourism.
Tell us about a memorable passenger interaction that sticks out to you.
We had a guest who really struggled to get around [as the result of a prior polio infection]. When guests have mobility challenges, we use special operations boats that are easier for them to get on and off—they’re like the Cadillac of the sea. But those boats can't go ashore, so if you want to touch the continent of Antarctica, your only chance is on a Zodiac. This guest, who asked us to call her Firecracker, really wanted to go ashore but she needed a lot of support to get there from Polaris. It took seven or eight of us, but we carried her from the Zodiac to the shore and she got to touch Antarctica. There were tears of joy all around. I had dinner with her later in the voyage, and she told me that she had saved up her entire life to see Antarctica. She was afraid the mobility issues might advance before she’d had the opportunity and that touching Antarctica was the best thing that had ever happened to her—her life’s dream.
What’s your top tip for first-time cruisers?
Spend time with the expedition team. It takes a special kind of person to spend a career going to polar regions—away from their family and living on a ship. They’ve led the sort of lives you make movies about and have incredible things to teach.
Originally Appeared on Condé Nast Traveler
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