Canadian Taelor Mercer, a UH Hilo marine science major, gains much from internship in Cambodia
“It felt like I was living out what I’d been studying in the classroom; only now it was real dolphins, real communities and real conservation challenges.”
By Susan Enright/UH Hilo Stories.
International student Taelor Mercer, a senior majoring in marine science at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo who hails from Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada, spent her summer in Cambodia on an internship with a marine conservation group.
Mercer spent her summer internship in Kampot, Cambodia, with Khmer Ocean Life, a small but growing marine conservation NGO. The internship was supported academically, but she personally funded, through the UH Hilo marine science department, for the internship course.
“I’ve always been interested in opportunities that connect science with community,” she says. “When I learned that Khmer Ocean Life was one of the first groups in Cambodia focused on marine mammals, I knew it would be a chance to be part of something meaningful at its very beginning. The combination of dolphin research, community outreach and hands-on conservation was exactly the kind of experience I wanted.”
Most of her days started early, heading out on land or boat surveys to look for Irrawaddy and Indo-Pacific Humpback dolphins, and Dugongs.
“I helped collect environmental data, record sightings and assist with photo-ID work,” she says. “Outside of surveys, I worked with local schools, designing a new lesson on marine habitats in Cambodia, and teaching it to students.”
(Courtesy photos of internship, click/tap for full size)
Mercer also joined community projects like beach clean-ups and mangrove planting, which she says were some of the most rewarding moments “because they brought everyone together for conservation.”
“On top of that, I carried out my own research on marine debris in Kampot, building survey methods from scratch and analyzing results in R Studio,” she says.
Mercer says the internship experience taught her far more than just field techniques.
“I learned how to be adaptable, how to work across cultures and how important it is to connect science to people’s everyday lives,” she says. “Leading lessons for kids gave me confidence in outreach and running my own debris project taught me what it takes to design and follow through with research in real conditions.”
Everything she did during her internship tied back to her marine science courses at UH Hilo.
“Survey work connected to my classes in ecology and conservation, while analyzing debris data, put my statistical training into practice,” she says. “It felt like I was living out what I’d been studying in the classroom; only now it was real dolphins, real communities and real conservation challenges.”
Update: Video
Mercer shares her experiences completing two internships in 2025:
Story by Susan Enright, a public information specialist for the Office of the Chancellor and editor of UH Hilo Stories. She received her bachelor of arts in English and certificate in women’s studies from UH Hilo.
