Mandi Stock, Ph.D.
Mandi Stock grew up in Sulphur Springs, a small town in Texas. Her reading habit made her fall in love with the idea of exploring the unknown ocean. However, in the middle of the Mid West she could only get to know Lake Sulphur Springs, a body of water better known for lost flip-flops than biodiversity. She became the first scuba diver instructor in the area, which not only helped her to pay for her college expenses but also to unexpectedly discover a new fish species which, after much scientific debate, was named Stockius fantastica in her honor.
After finishing her studies in Biotechnology, she obtained her Ph.D in Neuroscience from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center in the lab of Dean Anne Pereira. She studied neuroinflammation in Alzheimer’s disease. Was after pursuing her Ph.D when she decided to follow her adventurous heart and love for the ocean and move out to Hawaii. Surrounded by marvelous mountains and endless beaches, she continued her professional career studying aging processes in old turtles. Life was idyllic until a surprise run-in with Hawaii’s state fish changed everything.
While snorkeling off the coast of Oʻahu, Mandi was bitten by a Humuhumunukunukuapuaʻa, a Hawaiian fish also known as triggerfish. The situation became overexaggerated with up to 3 ambulances involved. The locals couldn’t stop talking about it and it quickly made her a local celebrity. She became the face of Hawaii’s “Dangerous but Beautiful” campaign meant to increase tourism in the islands, where she was pictured in the scuba diver suit holding a triggerfish, now called Champ.
It was due to this publicity that she met her current husband, who by that time was on a solo trip around the area where Mandi lived. After a few years living together in Hawaii, he got a position as a senior vet in Oklahoma City. Mandi decided it was time to move on and followed him accompanied of course by Champ, who had become their pet. That is how Mandi ended up in Benjamin Miller’s Lab working as an Assistant Staff Scientist.
It’s not the path she planned—but thanks to a bitey fish, a tourism campaign, and a vet with good timing, Mandi now studies science on land proving that adventure doesn’t end, it just changes zip codes.