News Photo by Darby Hinkley Sophie Stuart has started at Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary as the new education and outreach specialist.

ALPENA — Sophie Stuart just got to Alpena about two weeks ago, and she’s excited to take on her new job with the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary.

Stuart is the new education and outreach specialist at Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary in Alpena. She will work closely with Daniel Moffatt, stewardship and education specialist at the sanctuary, which is headquartered at the Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center. TBNMS operations are overseen by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Stuart graduated in 2018 from East Carolina University with a master’s degree in Maritime Studies. She earned her bachelor’s degree in History and Spanish from Portland State University in Portland, Oregon, where she is from.

“I did my master’s thesis research here,” said Stuart. “I’m from the West Coast, originally. But, during grad school, my thesis advisor was Dr. Bradley Rodgers, who is a famous maritime archaeologist from Wisconsin. So, he took me and a group of students up for a field school in Wisconsin. He knew I liked cold water and was interested in more American history.”

They were located outside of Sheboygan, Wisconsin.

“I had never been to the Great Lakes before, but I fell in love with it,” Stuart said. “I loved how tangible maritime history was. Because, being from the West Coast and Oregon, everything is about the Oregon Trail, even though we have so much more history.”

She said exploring maritime history on the Great Lakes is interesting and fun.

“I love how, here, every shipwreck tells a story, and the water, being cold and fresh, helps preserve that history,” Stuart said.

She also takes a liking to lighthouses.

“I’m a lighthouse aficionado,” she said. “I love them. So, the Presque Isle Lighthouses caught my fancy. I came up in here in the fall of 2016, and did two weeks staying in the quarters, learning everything I could about the Presque Isle Lighthouses, and then I came back again in the spring of 2017.”

Her thesis is on the Old Presque Isle Lighthouse and the New Presque Isle Lighthouse, “and the Garrity family, who helped run them, between the parents and the kids, for over 100 years, combined.”

She’s also been to Sturgeon Point Lighthouse in Harrisville, and 40 Mile Point Lighthouse in Rogers City. She toured all of the lighthouses in the area during those visits.

“After I graduated in 2018, I got a job at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum in the U.P., in Paradise at Whitefish Point,” Stuart said. “So, I got very familiar with all the lighthouses up there, as well.”

She then worked at the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum in 2019. She returned to the U.P. in 2020, worked for the State of Wisconsin in 2021.

“We were doing underwater archaeology, and then, I was helping to pilot an education program teaching kids about shipwrecks, virtually, because of COVID,” Stuart said. “And then, the last two years, I’ve been at the Chesapeke Bay Maritime Museum as the youth programs coordinator.”

She loves working with youth.

“Kids are my passion,” she said, adding that encouraging them to pursue the sciences is very important to her.