The character arc of Asha de Vos
A life drawn by Character Arc from the public record
Born in 1979 in Sri Lanka. Between then and now sit second-hand magazines her parents brought home when she was six and a childhood ambition to be an adventure scientist, schools in Colombo, an undergraduate degree in Scotland, a masters at Oxford and a doctorate in Western Australia, a first for her country in marine mammal research, a blue whale project begun in 2008, the discovery that one population never migrates, a change in how an international commission treats those whales, a conservation organisation founded at home, and a public argument with her own field. The line below draws the story so far, in order.
Drag along the line to move, pinch or use the buttons to look closer. Tap the line to pluck it, or any mark for its card. Drawn from the public record of her life; the sources are at the foot of the page.
Who is Asha de Vos?
Second-hand magazines at six. A whale population at thirty.
When she was six her parents used to bring her second-hand National Geographic magazines. Her own account of what she did with them is the origin of everything else: she would look through the pages and imagine that that would be her one day, going places where no one else would ever go and seeing things no one else would ever see. It made her want to be, in her phrase, an adventure scientist.
She went to school in Colombo and then left: an undergraduate degree in marine and environmental biology at St Andrews in Scotland, a masters in integrative biosciences at Oxford, and a doctorate at the University of Western Australia. She is the first and only Sri Lankan to gain a doctorate in marine mammal research, which is a statement about the field as much as about her.
She served as a senior programme officer in the marine and coastal unit of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and in 2008 founded the Sri Lankan Blue Whale Project, the first long-term study of blue whales in the northern Indian Ocean.
What it found changed the textbook. Blue whales were thought to migrate every year. Her research showed an unrecognised and unique population that stays in the waters near Sri Lanka all year round. Because of that work, the International Whaling Commission has designated Sri Lankan blue whales a species in urgent need of conservation research, and has begun working with the Sri Lankan government on ships striking whales. She is an invited member of the cetacean specialist group of the IUCN species survival commission, was a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California Santa Cruz, and blogged for National Geographic.
She founded and directs Oceanswell, the first marine conservation research and education organisation in Sri Lanka, on the belief that the health and future of coastlines depends on local people. And she has made an argument her own profession did not much want to hear: that parachute science, the practice of Western scientists collecting data in developing countries and then leaving without training or investing in local people or the region, is unsustainable and cripples conservation. She is a Senior TED Fellow, a National Geographic Emerging Explorer grantee from 2016, and was chosen for a BBC 100 Women award in 2018.
The moments
Asha de Vos's timeline.
The 1970s
Born in Sri Lanka
Everyday. Sri Lanka, 1979.
The 1980s
Second-hand magazines
Milestone, and it changed everything. Her own words for what the magazines did.
The 1990s
St Andrews
Milestone, and it changed her direction. Colombo to Scotland, for the marine biology.
The 2000s
Oxford, then Western Australia
Milestone, and it changed everything. The first person from her country ever to take that doctorate.
At the IUCN
Milestone, and it changed her direction. A post at the international conservation body.
Stay abroad, or work at home
Crossroads, decided.
The paths laid out: take the science home, taken, or stay in the international system. She found a resident blue whale population, changed what the whaling commission does, and founded her country first marine conservation organisation.
The Blue Whale Project
Milestone, and it changed everything. The first long-term study of those whales, ever.
The 2010s
A population that never leaves
Milestone, and it changed everything. Everybody thought they migrated. These ones do not.
The Whaling Commission acts
Milestone, and it changed everything. Her research changed what an international commission does.
Santa Cruz, and the specialist group
Milestone, and it changed her direction. The magazines she read at six, and then she wrote for them.
An emerging explorer
Milestone, and it changed her direction. A grant from the magazine she grew up on.
Oceanswell
Milestone, and it changed everything. The first marine conservation organisation her country ever had.
She names parachute science
Milestone, and it changed everything. She told her own profession what was wrong with it.
The BBC hundred
Milestone, and it changed her direction. One of a hundred women, that year.
Oceanswell is still training Sri Lankan marine scientists, which is the whole point of it. What she set moving is a population of the largest animal that has ever lived, which nobody had noticed stays put, found by the first person from that country ever to be allowed to look.
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Asha de Vos: frequently asked questions
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More character arcs
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Sources
- Asha de Vos, English Wikipedia biography, filed under living people.
- The Sri Lankan Blue Whale Project, founded 2008.
- The International Whaling Commission designation of Sri Lankan blue whales.
- Her own account of the magazines and of parachute science, as quoted there.