Imagine a landscape under the sea, with mountains, valleys and ancient remnants of coasts, that would be exposed if you could lift back the water. Humans have long been fascinated by, and reliant on, the sea. Along the South African Cape South Coast there is evidence of some of the earliest Homo sapiens coastal communities anywhere on Earth, going back almost 200,000 years. I grew up in Durban, on the shores of Brighton Beach, and have lived in Cape Town since I finished undergraduate studies 15 years ago. It is an insatiable curiosity and a slightly unconventional childhood that painted my path and landed me where I am today. I collected rocks, stones and was interested in fossils when I was young and have long wondered about how the Earth ‘works’. To be able to map the seabed excites me massively and the ocean space remains a last frontier in many ways, which we are yet to deeply understand. I currently hold the position of Chief Scientist in marine geology at the Council for Geoscience. I lead a national continental shelf mapping programme, and am also a Research Associate at the Nelson Mandela University’s African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience. I graduated with a PhD from the University of Cape Town (2014), and conducted a post-doctoral research fellowship at the University of Bremen’s Centre for Marine Environmental Sciences in Germany. My PhD research has led to further collaboration with partners from various disciplines within a broad context of understanding global change. My research interests include mapping and reconstructing submerged landscapes, and studying aspects of palaeoclimate and changing sea levels.

Website: https://scholar.google.co.za/citations?user=z6bMFqsAAAAJ&hl=en
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hayley-cawthra-a9007013/?originalSubdomain=za
Website: https://p5project.org/ This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx