Sandra Witten

Sandra serves as OET’s Executive Director of Development and Special Programs. She manages the development program, including relations with sponsors, donors, and VIPs, and creates and maintains programs that provide opportunities to visit field programs. Sandra also works at the Center for Ocean Exploration (COE) at the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography. Prior to working for OET and COE, Sandra worked as Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and at the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, where she oversaw agency wide grant programs. Sandra has a passion for swimming and has been a member of New England Masters Swimming and US Master Swimming for 15 years. In 2009, while in Turkey with the Nautilus Exploration Program, Sandra swam in the famous Hellespont Swim competition, crossing from Europe to Asia.

Sandra received her bachelor’s degree in biology from Denison University, including a semester at City of London Polytechnic, and her master’s degree in political science, with an emphasis on international relations and natural resource policy, from the University of Arizona, and ran the high-school level Arizona State Model United Nations.