Alannah most recently was the Community Development Lead at Coral Vita, the world’s first land-based, commercial coral farm for the restoration of reefs where she worked daily to revitalise the world’s dying coral reefs. With her team, Alannah worked on perfecting coral husbandry, micro-fragmentation methods, and coral propagation techniques to grow corals that are resilient to the world’s changing climate, that when outplanted, will bolster coral reef resilience and biodiversity. Alannah also engaged local community members including government officials, community organizations, students, and visitors to the island through leading informative tours and developing events and educational programming.

Alannah’s skill and passion for the ocean and its inclusion of women and BIPOC community members in ocean spaces landed her features in documentaries and magazines – most notably, ‘Enslaved’ documentary featuring Samuel L. Jackson, Discovery Channel’s Shark Week, PBS Nova, and Essence magazine. This exposure afforded her with over 29k followers on social media where she uses underwater visuals and relatable media to advocate for ocean awareness and protection. Additionally, Alannah’s experiences, personal journey, and skillset has awarded her sponsorships from companies such as GoPro, Fourth Element, PADI, and SUUNTO, as they support her message and adventurous lifestyle themed in marine research and advocacy. In her spare time Alannah is an active member of Black in Marine Science, she enjoys distance running, beekeeping, and freediving with a personal best of 39m in constant weight bifins. Alannah uses her freediving ability to partner with underwater photographers to create moving imagery that illustrates the plight of our oceans through underwater modelling. Alannah is seeking to set a record for Bahamian women in freediving in the near future.

Currently Alannah aspires to attend graduate school to continue her studies in marine ecology, specifically in coral reef ecology. In her short lifetime, Alannah has witnessed first-hand the degradation and slow crumble of the extensive, technicolor reefs of The Bahamas and is dedicated to further understanding reef health and its restoration and protection.

By combining her commitment to marine research, platform in ocean storytelling and advocacy, and her intersectionality as a Black woman from a small island developing state experiencing major negative effects of climate change, Alannah feels it is her personal mission to extend ocean discovery, literacy, and optimism to marginalized communities, especially women and BIPOC members, for she firmly believes that these communities must be included in climate action and ocean protection conversations to secure a healthy future ocean for us all.

“The ocean is for everyone and is in need of everyone.”

- Alannah Vellacott