Meet Ocean Explorer Adam Harper!

OET proudly welcomes Adam Harper to the Corps of Exploration as part of the Science & Engineering Internship Program. This internship program supports community college, undergraduate, and graduate students in building professional workforce experience and exploring STEAM-related careers that connect to research themes like robotics, ocean science, education, and exploration. Adam is joining E/V Nautilus for our NA181 expedition as a video engineering intern.

We sat with Adam to learn more about his experience at sea and the path that led him to Nautilus.

Describe your role with OET.

As a Video Systems Engineering Intern, I'm here to learn how to operate our essential systems, ensure the integrity and quality of our deliverables, and help spread our information, discoveries, and knowledge to our key audience: you! Interested viewers and curious minds across the world who want to learn more about our oceans. I help to run the livestreams by choosing cameras for our satellite feeds to go out to our audience, arranging and composing the image that comes from our main cameras on both ROVs, and balancing the audio levels across our Science Party Line (SPL) so our scientists come through cleanly. It’s a lot of button pushing and back-to-back action, but it’s an important position for sure, and one that has been an incredible opportunity to join the team and contribute.

Can you tell us a little about your background? What influenced you as a child?

I grew up in Tucson, Arizona, The Old Pueblo, the biggest-small town in Arizona. It’s where I went to school all of my years, even graduating from the University of Arizona with a Bachelor’s in Film & TV Production (and a minor in Marine Sciences to boot!). Growing up there, my influence was definitely the people around me; my family, my friends, and my community always felt behind me. I look back on my memories of growing up and couldn’t point to just one moment where everything clicked, or one experience that defined me. Sure, some experiences make for better stories, or certainly line up more with where my work has taken me, but at the end of the day, my influence was the people and my city around me growing up. It’s where I came to love the rain, it’s where I first started dreaming of the sea, it’s where I made so many close friends, where I saw some of my favorite movies, it’s all of it. To my community, my “village”, my family and friends, you were my influence growing up; thank you for making me me!

When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Man, as a kid there was so much I wanted to do when I grew up! I wanted to be a restaurant owner, a chef, a firefighter, a priest, a movie theater owner, a paleontologist, of course I had an astronaut phase, being a movie star was a big one, and of course being a Youtuber (though if I'm being honest, I’m still crossing my fingers hoping!). Looking back on it, there’s just so many cool things to do out there it makes sense why I was all over the place.

What would you consider to be your greatest challenge entering this field?

Definitely the greatest challenge I faced, and in some ways still face to this day, is the job hunt. In the early stages of the film industry, landing a job means that you have work anywhere from one month to one day in some cases, and then you’re back to looking for a new position. It was definitely daunting figuring that out firsthand, and especially is still hard adjusting to this format of work. Growing up and taking early jobs in high school/college is such regular, consistent work that you almost have to break yourself out of the mindset of finding one job and sticking with it until it’s over, you have to constantly be looking for the next role/position. It has given me some rare opportunities, like being able to work at Spirit Halloween when the job hunt slowed, or help my dad with the family business between jobs, but it can also be pretty difficult to keep finding work in such a tight job market, especially back in my home town where there aren’t as many film jobs as there once was. 

Do you have any advice for someone looking to follow a similar path?

The biggest advice I can give is to try everything and to give everything your 100%! There are too many experiences in life for one person to be able to do it all, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try! Any experiences you have, even menial ones, can help you down the line. Tired of your mom having you clean the bathroom? It certainly helps later on when you’re preparing the house for your friends to come over. Did dad have you do fluid checks and battery cleanings on his truck for him? It makes helping a friend jumpstart their car or knowing they need some coolant added later on! Every small experience you do helps you become more well rounded. Plus, you never know where your next opportunity may come from! I got my first film opportunity from my high school band teacher. Your next opportunity can come from anywhere, so give everything you do 100% of your effort, and the people around you will take notice!

What's next for your ocean studies and career? 

For one, I would love to be able to come back and sail with OET and E/V Nautilus again! My experience here has been invaluable, and I feel more capable of conducting the duties of a video engineer than I had initially thought myself able to do. I’d love to be able to continue developing myself and contribute my skillset and capabilities to more teams and streams like this. As someone still new to this type of work, it’s also exciting to think about the unknown possibilities that will arise out of this experience. I’ve heard from many people aboard that working in this field opens so many doors and unique opportunities, I'm excited for whatever lies ahead! The road ahead isn’t obvious but at least I'm open to follow it where it leads!