Hey, it's Flora Lichten, and you're listening to Science Friday.

Today we're headed to the waters off of Sri Lanka, a tropical island off the coast of India.

There you will find a population of blue whales that behaves unlike any other in the world.

They stay put while every other population we know of migrates.

Not everyone has the privilege of saying that a floating pile of whale poop

was, you know, where their career kick started.

But it's a pretty good story.

So I'm going to go with that.

And it was my eureka moment.

That discovery was made by a student who had just finished her undergrad degree.

The finding made a huge splash, and so did that student who later became the first Sri Lankan to earn a PhD on marine mammal research, effectively charting a new path

in science in her country. Dr. Asha DeVos is here to tell us about how she did it and what it

takes to raise the next generation of ocean champions. Asha is the founder and executive director of

the nonprofit Ocean Swell. Asha, welcome to Science Friday. Hi, I'm so pleased to be

here. Asha, I want to go back to this big moment in your scientific life. It's 2003. You're fresh out of

undergrad. You're working on a research vessel off the coast of Sri Lanka and something catches your

eye. Pick it up from here.

Oh, yeah. Okay. So whenever I get to tell this story, I get so excited because it takes me back to

that moment. So we were tracking some sperm whales, actually, off the coast of Sri Lanka.

I was out on deck looking for them, but actually in the distance, what I did see was a really

tall, powerful blow or the exhalation of a whale.

But it was so tall and powerful, I immediately knew that it was not a sperm whale.

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