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The good Cornellians can do: Nancy Lansum Poon ’00

Nancy cautions visitors to the Monterey Bay Aquarium to give these sea nettles a wide berth. “Sea nettle tentacles are covered in stinging cells that paralyze and then stick tight to prey. 10/10 do not recommend swimming near any sea nettle,” she says.

As a child, Nancy Lansum Poon '00 visited the New England Aquarium in Boston and fell in love with the dolphins. She dreamed of someday becoming a marine mammologist.

Nancy studied engineering at Cornell, which led her to Silicon Valley to work as a project manager at a tech firm.

One day on a trip to the coast, Nancy walked past the Monterey Bay Aquarium. “"It was kismet when I walked by and thought to myself, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to volunteer there!’” she says.

Since then, Nancy has racked up more than 250 service hours and helped interpret the undersea world and its creatures to countless visitors. The Aquarium’s mission—to inspire conservation of the ocean—resonates with her.

She recalls this recent conversation with a visitor:

“We spent some time chatting about how sea otters are a keystone species in a kelp forest (besides being so cute!) and how kelp is important to humans as a producer of oxygen in the photosynthesis process. I asked her, ‘Did you know that every third breath you take comes from the ocean?’ That’s when I saw her eyes light up with resolve to become a steward of the ocean.”

Cornellians around the globe are sharing how they do good in communities big and small. Share your own story.