iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Kelly P Bushnell, PhD 🌊 @drkelpy.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

Thanks to all who turned out to hear me talk about sharks and culture!

Me talking in front of a lecture hall with a black and white image of a basking shark protected onto the screen. I’m wearing a plaid flannel and looking very northwesty.

Kelly P Bushnell, PhD 🌊 @drkelpy.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

Some quiet underwater moments from this week of good viz: perennial fave ratfish, Taylor’s sea hares so massive they weigh down their blades of eelgrass, and so many jellies that the entire surface layer felt like a big soft invisible ball pit.

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Kelly P Bushnell, PhD 🌊 @drkelpy.bsky.social · 15/06/2025

Seattle showing up as usual! 70,000 on this gorgeous PNW day. 🌲🌊✊ (The monorail even gave us a beepbeep and everyone lost their minds 😹💙) #nokings #noICE

My sign, which reads “No one is illegal on stolen land,” in front of the Space Needle.

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Kelly P Bushnell, PhD 🌊 @drkelpy.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

What’s the best fish in the Salish Sea, and why is it the Pacific Spiny Lumpsucker (Eumicrotremus orbis)?

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Kelly P Bushnell, PhD 🌊 @drkelpy.bsky.social · 07/01/2025

It’s the first day of Winter Quarter and I’ve got the best classroom in town! BIOL110 is my interdisciplinary Salish Sea marine bio course, anchored in ecology but with an arts/hum kaleidoscope for a lens. And happy to be at Highline supporting an 80% BIPOC and 60% first-generation student body!

Tall blonde female teaching in front of classroom wearing a plaid flannel shirt because she thinks it strikes the right tone between scholarly and outdoorsy.

Classroom window which looks out onto Puget Sound. It’s a calm gray misty day.

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Kelly P Bushnell, PhD 🌊 @drkelpy.bsky.social · 05/01/2025

Since July, we’ve been visiting this enormous GPO (Giant Pacific #Octopus, Enteroctopus dofleini) caring for her eggs in her den… (1/5)

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Kelly P Bushnell, PhD 🌊 @drkelpy.bsky.social · 28/12/2024

Happy Hanukkah! We’ve lit our whale menorah in Virginia, Bahrain, Florida, and now Seattle! 🐳🕎

Bright blue, generically whale-shaped menorah with three candles lit.

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Kelly P Bushnell, PhD 🌊 @drkelpy.bsky.social · 27/12/2024

This photo is from three weeks before her death. I’ll miss her forever. We can —we must— honor her life by continuing her work toward decolonization. ᖁᔭᓐᓇᒦᒃ. (3/3)

Kelly B. hugs Kelly F. while the latter takes a photo in the mirror of a women’s bathroom somewhere in Norway.

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Kelly P Bushnell, PhD 🌊 @drkelpy.bsky.social · 27/12/2024

ᐅᖓᒋᕙᒋᑦ 💙 Christmas Eve marked five years since we lost Kelly Amaujaq Fraser. She was a fiercely caring and loyal friend, a brilliant artist, teacher, activist and musician who reached far beyond the Arctic. (1/3)

Us in Tromsø November 2019: A blond woman (me) and a woman with black hair (Kelly Fraser) looking at the camera with big smiles.

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Kelly P Bushnell, PhD 🌊 @drkelpy.bsky.social · 24/12/2024

My all-time favorite, by Tim Andraka. Season’s eatings, and toothy kisses under the abyss-tletoe from me and mine to you and yours!

A cookie cutter shark reimagined for Christmas with its mouth in three different festive shapes: candy cane, tree, and gingerbread man! It’s shown biting a concerned-looking great white.

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Kelly P Bushnell, PhD 🌊 @drkelpy.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

Today’s whimsical holiday sea-scene: Grunt Sculpin (Rhamphocottus richardsonii) looking skyward in front of Strawberry Anemones (Actinia fragacea). These colors look like they belong in the tropics, but they’re right here in the Salish Sea in 51F water! #fishmas #marinelife

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Kelly P Bushnell, PhD 🌊 @drkelpy.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

Also ran into this O. rubescens who seemed like they had a side quest for me…

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Kelly P Bushnell, PhD 🌊 @drkelpy.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

Melibe leonina (hooded, a.k.a lion’s mane #nudibranch) on my dive in the front yard today. This luminous loogie gulps plankton with rows of cirri on its oral hood and, as you can see, the current is bringing plenty (and keeping us both rockin and rollin!) #marinelife

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Kelly P Bushnell, PhD 🌊 @drkelpy.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

Kelleen Lum, 1973-2024. One of the best to ever do it. 💙

Dive instructor Kelleen Lum looks at a huge well-camouflaged frogfish.

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Kelly P Bushnell, PhD 🌊 @drkelpy.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

Started my day at Pacific Marine Expo here in Seattle with three excellent panels: 🔊 Quiet Sound’s work to lessen the impact of vessel noise on SRKWs 🦦 Seaweed’s integration into the global blue economy ⛴️ Marine decarbonization (esp. alternative fuels)

Expansive exhibit floor at pacific Marine Expo.

A slide which reads “Admiralty Inlet Voluntary Slowdown for Large Commercial Vessels”

A title slide for the panel “Seaweed’s Integration into the Global Blue Economy”

A title slide for the panel “Marine Decarbonization: A PNW Approach”

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Kelly P Bushnell, PhD 🌊 @drkelpy.bsky.social · 13/11/2024

I’m especially passionate about the Pacific and the polar regions, and what a feminist and decolonial ethos of ocean exploration might look like. Also get in touch if you like nudibranchs. Because I really, really like nudibranchs. (Here’s a Ceratosoma sp. from Lembeh last Feb!)

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Kelly P Bushnell, PhD 🌊 @drkelpy.bsky.social · 13/11/2024

You can check out some of my publications and syllabi over at kellypbushnell.com, and see dive videos from here in Puget Sound at instagram.com/dr.kelpy. (Here’s a Giant Pacific Octopus who has been tending her eggs here for several months!)

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Kelly P Bushnell, PhD 🌊 @drkelpy.bsky.social · 13/11/2024

Hi! I'm Kelly, aka Dr. Kelpy to my students. I teach and write about ocean biodiversity from a historical/cultural perspective, combining archival research with my underwater experience as a dive pro to help connect people to our one global ocean.

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