Life on the Rocks with Juli Berwald | Shorewords!

November 18, 2022

A look into the amazing world of coral reefs!

Join Lesley Ewing in conversation with Juli Berwald to learn of the importance of coral reefs in the marine environment.  Juli’s first book, Spineless, discussed jelly fish and the art of grow a backbone.  Life on the Rocks covers the assembly of plants and animals that make up coral reefs. Hear Juli explain why she considers corals to be the badasses of the marine world, learn about some of coral’s natural adaptations to warmer temperatures, and the experimental restoration and conservation measures that people are attempting.

Show Transcription
This transcription was generated by a computer. Please excuse any errors.
Lesley Ewing

Hello. I’m Lesley Ewing, host of Shorewords!. This podcast combines two of my favorite things – the ocean and books. I learned to swim before I could walk and looked forward each summer to my family’s vacation at Ocean City, Maryland. As a student I was interested in science and engineering and became an environmental engineer before learning that there was something called coastal engineering. Both my 1 st and 2 nd mid-life crises resulted in me going back to school – first for a Masters of Engineering at UC Berkeley and later for a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California. The first crisis also moved me from DC to the SF Bay. The second crisis reminded me how much I liked to read. Getting a Ph.D. while working a 40+-hour/week job meant that my only reading was work reports, text books and technical articles. They were all important and interesting books, but as soon as school ended, I replaced my academic text books with broader literature and realized that the coast was often a character in the fiction and non-fiction that I read. I am still fascinated by every visit to the ocean and remain in awe of what others write about the coast.