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<TITLE>Lovely article about a Blind scientist </TITLE>
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<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Good morning all, </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">I met Amy Bower back in the late 1990s at Ski for Light, and was so delighted to see this lovely article about her. </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">To be sure you all get to read it, I’m attempting to paste both the link and the text</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">below my signature. </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">I think my favorit</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">e part might well be the surprise that it was a doctor who let her know loss of sight did not equate loss of life!</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">It’s from the Spring 2016 issue of the Tufts University magazine.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Read on and smile!</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Deborah</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><A HREF="http://emerald.tufts.edu/alumni/magazine/spring2016/discover/seaing-is-believing.html"><SPAN LANG="en-us"><U><FONT COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Calibri">http://emerald.tufts.edu/alumni/magazine/spring2016/discover/seaing-is-believing.html</FONT></U></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></A><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">> </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">AMY BOWER WAS DEVASTATED AFTER BEING DECLARED LEGALLY BLIND IN THE 1990S. THEN SHE DECIDED TO BECOME AN OCEANOGRAPHER ANYWAY</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">BY SEAN CORCORAN</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Some scientists like to follow up on other people’s research, going back to where discoveries were first made to see what else there is to learn. Then</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">there are scientists like Amy Bower, J81. “I like to explore areas that are not very well known at all,” said Bower, who studies ocean currents that are</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">6,000 feet deep in the ocean. “The currents I typically focus on are not even measurable on the sea surface.”</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Those mysterious, mostly untracked currents are partly responsible for keeping the earth cool as they transport heat away from the equator. “We’re trying</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">to understand, where are these currents?” Bower said. “How fast are they going? How much heat do they hold? Are they changing? And are any of those changes</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">associated with atmospheric changes such as air temperature increases?”</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Bower is a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod, where her office window reveals an impressive ocean view. But the</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">soothing vista is mostly lost on her. Bower’s retinas can make out only a crescent-shaped sliver of Nantucket Sound’s white-capped waters. She is a blind</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">scientist of the sea who has watched her sight slowly slip away. “I still can see some, and I still have some light perception,” she said. “I have a small</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">region of pretty good retina.”</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Bower first began to notice problems with her vision when she was a Tufts undergraduate studying physics. A few years later, when she was in graduate school</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">at the University of Rhode Island, she received an official diagnosis of both macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa. The news nearly knocked her</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">off the science track. “I didn’t know any blind scientists at all,” she said. “I was devastated at first because I thought that was the end.”</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">It was a Boston-based optometrist who dismissed Bower’s concern that she would have to leave science. Instead, he taught her about technologies to help</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">sight-impaired people. “He showed me some tools,” Bower recalled, “and I was like, ‘All right, maybe. Maybe it’s possible.’”</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Today, Bower manages to do everything other oceanographers do, including going on research cruises. If you want a good story, ask her about the time pirates</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">in the Gulf of Aden used rocket-propelled grenade launchers to attack her research vessel. “They chased us and fired grenades and rifles at us,” she said.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">“They didn’t hit us, thank God.”</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Pirates aside, there’s no place Bower would rather be than on the water. When she was at Tufts and still had her vision, she was on the sailing team. Now,</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">at fifty-five and legally blind, she’s sailing again. This past fall, she won the World Blind Sailing Championship in Chicago.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Bower is also well-known these days for her advocacy and outreach. In 2007, she started a program with the Perkins School for the Blind called Ocean Insight,</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">which is designed to get blind kids excited about science. “If they don’t ever see a blind scientist, they’re never going to think that they can be one,”</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">she said. </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> © 2016</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
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