Meet the South African researcher with a view as wide as the ocean

To get an idea of how Sarah Fawcett thinks, you need to look at the world map on her office wall. The South Pole is at the top.

Her finger traces along the west coast of Africa, down from Cape Town to the Equator. That’s where her research will focus over the next five years in her study of the dynamics of oxygen and its effect on biogeochemical cycles, atmospheric carbon dioxide and fish stocks in an ocean that is rapidly warming. The $9.5m project is supported by the Ocean Biogeochemistry Virtual Institute (OBVI) of Schmidt Sciences, a US philanthropic organisation.

Fawcett is an associate professor in the department of oceanography at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and the university’s Marine & Antarctic Research for Innovation and Sustainability. Her specific area of study is described as “biogeochemical oceanography, nitrogen isotopes, and the nitrogen and carbon cycles … [and] the role of the oceans in past, present and future climate”. Her passion for this project includes the effect that ocean chemistry is having on humans.

“There are so many communities [on the African coast] whose livelihoods and lives depend on ocean resources. All are impacted by changing levels of oxygen,” Fawcett says.

“I think this is the confluence of things that made this project attractive [for OBVI]: that it’s topical, that there’s a human element, and that the leadership from South Africa is so strong. There is an American connection — we have a collaboration with Princeton University — but the bulk of the funding is coming to South Africa and the different  components of the project are mostly being led by South African researchers.”

Key participants come from UCT, the Council for Scientific & Industrial Research, Princeton University, Stellenbosch University and the Namibian ministry of fisheries & marine resources. “We plan to run the project through a leadership team of two South Africans and two Americans. Three are women.” The wider team is multiracial, Fawcett says, “and that is rare in ocean sciences”.

Fawcett’s project is one of five, involving more than 60 scientists from 11 countries, all sponsored by OBVI in partnership with Schmidt Sciences. The organisations have pledged a total of $45m to the study of the role of oceans in regulating climate.

There are so many communities ...  whose livelihoods and lives depend on ocean resources. All are affected by changing levels of oxygen

—  Sarah Fawcett

The five projects “can all be connected”, Fawcett says. They include the middle of the South Atlantic and the system along the Brazilian coast, which offers a view of the whole South Atlantic  and is the gateway to the North Atlantic. There “the ocean breathes into the atmosphere”, Fawcett says.

“Collective efforts over the last century have focused mainly on the North Atlantic.”

An important benefit will be the advancement of young Africans in oceanography — not only in research but also in professions and new businesses arising from responses to climate change.

“This is an opportunity to create a network for our students … to be part of a much bigger network. And there will be many of them, because my project alone spans South Africa, Namibia, geography, biological sciences and modelling. All these research cruises, with different groups, all over the South Atlantic. ... People in the international educational community will all know [about] the Schmidt OBVI programme.”

Fawcett’s interest in oceans began after she flew over the Atlantic to visit a US friend who had been in an exchange programme at Benoni High School, which Fawcett attended in the late 1990s.

“Back in 2000, when I finished high school, the way we were advised was, if you were smart you should do medicine or actuarial science. Going to the US was not part of the plan,” she says.

Fawcett applied to Harvard University on a whim, and was accepted. “As an undergrad, I ended up in an earth and planetary sciences department — everything from geology to organic chemistry. It gave me a broad overview of the Earth’s systems, and oceans are an essential component of that,” she says.

She completed a degree in earth and planetary science, stayed to do postgraduate work, and completed her PhD at Princeton, where she later held a postdoctoral fellowship. In 2015 she was appointed a lecturer in oceanography at UCT.

Returning to South Africa from what she describes as the “rarefied atmosphere of the American east coast” was a happy career step.

“The standard of ocean science research in South Africa is extremely high: good people are doing great work. I have the opportunity to think about different problems. I’m not sure if I’d stayed in the States I’d have had these opportunities.”