Bo Huff '24

Bo Huff’ 24 and other researchers braved the windless heat of Bald Head Island with purpose and passion. He recently served as a nighttime tagging intern on Bald Head Island, where their focus was on sea turtle conservation.

“Everything I have done has been an amazing experience. It was hard, a lot of early mornings and bad field conditions, but I wouldn’t do anything different besides taking advantage of 10 times more opportunities,” he said.
  
Huff, an environmental science major, is a dedicated researcher and conservationist whose love for wildlife inspired his own education. A pivotal moment for Huff was visiting the environmental science career fair. 
  
“Talking to all these professionals in a field I wanted to be a part of was an eye-opening moment that it is possible to do something impactful and have the means to do it,” he said. “That is where I found out about the Bald Head Island Conservancy and the Plastic Ocean Project, and since then, I have not looked back.” 
 
Huff took advantage of other opportunities as an undergraduate, including UNCW’s Plastic Ocean Project, where he currently serves as the research committee leader. 
  
“This semester, we are going to conduct a research project on the sanitation wipes used at the Rec Center to see potential environmental impacts and, if need be, come up with an alternative solution the rec center could use to lower its potential ecological footprint, if there is any to mitigate in the first place,” Huff said.

Huff also conducted field research in the Intracoastal Waterway and lab research on microplastics with the Bald Head Island Sea Turtle Program.

After Huff’s first year at UNCW, he joined the university’s Office of Transition Programs as an orientation leader, and it became one of his favorite memories.

“It was like summer camp for college students, and I learned to be confident and talk in front of many people with no problem,” Huff said. “It set me up for future success as I went through the rest of my college career.”

Huff plans to continue his sea turtle conservation efforts as a research technician, nighttime tagging technician, or nesting coordinator after graduation.

“These are just prospective jobs now, but hopefully, as I become more qualified, I can become a sea turtle biologist,” Huff said.