September 27, 2017 — Kent Carpenter developed an interest in fish early in life.
“It started when I watched Jacques Cousteau at 13 years old,” said Carpenter who earned an undergraduate degree in marine biology at Florida Institute for Technology in 1975 and later went on to earn his doctorate at the University of Hawaii.
From 1975 to 1978, he was in the Peace Corps based in the Philippines.
That is when – and where – Carpenter said his interest in ichthyology, or the study of fish, flourished.
“I was in charge of coral reef research for the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources” (in the Philippines), he said.
Now a professor in the department of biological sciences at Old Dominion University, Carpenter has been awarded a $4.6 million grant from the National Science Foundation.