Benjamin Alexander Frey

Benjamin is working as a Marine Debris Program Specialist in NOAA’s National Ocean Service Marine Debris Program. He will be working on projects relating to the prevention, mitigation, and removal of derelict fishing gear from the marine environment. He is a graduate of Morgan State University, where he received a B.S. in biology. Ben is currently a master’s student in the Marine, Estuarine, Environmental Science graduate program at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science’s Chesapeake Biological Laboratory. His thesis is focused on a new way to find out how old fish are. Specifically, he investigates if we can tell how old a fish is by the amount of chemicals it absorbs throughout its lifetime.

In his free time, Ben enjoys playing video games with friends, reading fantasy novels, hiking with his dog, and cooking.