Alexia Dimopoulos - marine biologist - Diving into the oceans and discovering herself in the process
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| COP19 work while working for Blue Resources trust |
There is something inspiring about a young person who knows what she loves and has the courage to build her life around it. At 25, Alexia Dimopoulos is already doing the kind of work that takes her from university classrooms in Brussels to coral reefs in Madagascar. But her journey towards becoming a marine biologist was not as straightforward as one might imagine. In fact, there was a time when she nearly gave up Biology altogether!
Alexia is a student of Marine Biology at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (U.L.B.), and she is already deeply involved in research, while also giving practical lessons to students at the university. Her work and her passion for marine life have taken her to Sri Lanka and Madagascar, where she has spent weeks at a time working in very different conditions. It is a journey that has taught her not only about marine life and research, but also a lot about herself.
Her childhood was a lovely one, she says. She was curious as a child, always asking questions, and spent a lot of her childhood reading. Her parents were in their 30s when she was born, and since she's their only child, she got all the best that they could afford, along with lots of love. Alexia and her parents are of Greek origin, with roots in Albania. Her parents immigrated to Belgium to start a new life and were determined to give their daughter the best life they could.
In secondary school, she was drawn to Latin because it gave her access to the ancient world and helped her understand the origins of things. Science appealed to her too, as she saw it as a door to knowledge, and she found herself torn between the two subjects. She was equally fascinated by the French language and the art of speaking it, particularly elocution, and so joined theatre as an after-school activity. She also learnt piano as a child.
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| Alexia on the football pitch |
Her interests extended beyond academics and the arts. Alexia played basketball for eight years in a club, from the age of 12 to 20. She then took up football and still plays it. Right now, she doesn't find time for theatre anymore, as sport takes up much of her time and she needs it to stay active and channel her energy. Listening to her, I recognise a young woman who probably grew up being good at many things, both in her studies and in her activities. I ask her if she's a perfectionist. She admits that as a child, she always put herself under pressure and wanted to do her best. All the pressure came from herself and never from her parents. They simply encouraged her in her achievements, seeing that she was good at most things she did.
The interesting thing, Alexia says, is that she nearly didn't become a biologist at all. She had almost failed Biology in secondary school, partly because her teacher didn't teach the subject well and actually discouraged her from pursuing it. It is ironic, then, that the subject she nearly gave up on would eventually become the field she chose to build her career in.
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| Sri Lanka |
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| Sri Lanka |
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| beach in Sri Lanka |
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| Sri Lanka beach |
As it turns out, she did well to choose it. Today, she is a biologist and has been doing research for the past two years. She spends half her time doing research and the rest giving practical classes to students in the Bachelor's programme at the university.
But research wasn't her first choice. While she was doing her Bachelor's, she was attracted by the sea and the oceans. She embarked on a professional internship to see what she liked about this field. She contacted an N.G.O. in Sri Lanka that works to support research into, and the welfare of, marine life along the coast. She went as an apprentice to work with them for three months. She worked mainly on the coast, snorkelling and learning technical ways of working. This N.G.O. is called 'Blue Resources Trust'. Her time with them helped her realise that this kind of work was her vocation and helped her make the decision to move forward.
Read more about the N.G.O. in Sri Lanka here blueresources.org
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| her end of the year thesis work |
During the first year of her Master's, she also learnt about COP19, the Conference of the Parties, where nations come together to address issues concerning endangered species. She got a glimpse into political communication and the behind-the-scenes workings of policy through COP19. She discovered that the decisions of each country in the domain of the protection and conservation of species are taken on basis of the political and vested interests rather than the actual protection of the species. This whole period helped her grow up and make an informed decision about stepping into the world of marine life and research.
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| first research for beginning of her thesis in Madagascar |
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| First meeting with the corals she still works on till today |
In the second year of her Master's, she had the opportunity to do research. She went to Madagascar for six weeks, funded by a scholarship and by the university. Specimens were brought to her by divers, and she worked on the coral reef. She has made four trips of this kind since she started, each lasting four to six weeks.
When she talks about the two countries she visited for her work, she says that Sri Lanka was, of course, special as it was her first trip outside the EU. The people were not having much, but she found them to be incredibly happy and kind too.
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| her work for her Master's |
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| working on samples of corals |
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| diving experience |
In Madagascar, however, the poverty was stark. She tried to stay focused on her work and not get involved in what she saw happening around her, as that would only distract her, says Alexia. At the same time, she found the country's history and its diverse people fascinating. Madagascar's history, with its many kingdoms and later colonisation, has left the island with a rich mix of cultures and ethnicities.
Her experience in Madagascar especially taught her that work can be done with very few resources. They had to start with almost nothing and make do with whatever was available. The first few weeks of her first trip were difficult. She wanted to save whatever and whoever she could. But the locals and the people she worked with taught her to take a step back each time and deal with the day-to-day problems that came with the experience. She learnt that each day brought its own challenges, its own solutions and its own goals, and that meaningful scientific work could be done even with very limited resources.
Alexia has been specialising in corals since the second year of her Master's. By then, she had realised that research was what she really wanted to pursue. In 2023, she began looking for research-related jobs, applying and searching for opportunities. It was finally in 2024 that she found a contract and was able to take her first step into the professional world of research.
Research is a field that comes with its own challenges, but Alexia was also facing another challenge that was important to her work, that of becoming a better diver. She realised that she needed to learn to dive well. She knew how to dive, but not well enough for the kind of work she wanted to do. She has now been developing this skill for two years.
Like what you've read till now of Alexia's story? Be sure to miss none of my stories, poems or featured posts by
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| friends in the love of football |
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| Alexia & Lucas |
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| at research work |
Learning to dive is an expensive pursuit. The equipment itself costs a lot, and every day she spends diving means a full day's trip outside Brussels. In Belgium, divers often train in old quarries that have filled with water over the years. The water can be extremely cold, sometimes around 4 degrees Celsius, so Alexia has to wear a 'dry suit'. I didn't even know such a suit existed, but Alexia explains that a wetsuit, which is normally used by divers, gets wet when it is worn and the person gets into water, allowing a layer of water to sit between the diver's body and the suit. In temperatures like these, wearing a wetsuit is simply too cold for the diver's comfort and well-being, so they use a dry suit instead.
The quarries also contain a lot of sediment, which floats in the water and makes visibility extremely poor. What could possibly be good about learning to dive in such conditions, you might ask? According to Alexia, these difficult conditions make divers trained in Belgium particularly good at what they do. If you can learn to dive in cold water with almost no visibility, you are well prepared for many other diving conditions.
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| diving with Lucas |
She dives with her partner, Lucas Terrana who is also in the same line of work. Alexia and he went together for their first scientific project in Madagascar, and he and his colleagues now help her improve her diving. Lucas is a companion in the true sense, working with her in all her passions, the diving, the science and also football. His helping her in diving has been an important step for her because she had become very insecure about her diving abilities. Back then, she would berate herself for not being good enough. She has since come to understand that diving requires the right mindset. She has also learnt that she doesn't have to do everything herself, and that it is perfectly natural not to be as experienced as some of the divers she works with.
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| getting better at diving |
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| still progressing in her diving |
Alexia talks about the time she had an anxiety attack in the water. It was so severe that she couldn't breathe properly for nearly five days after getting out of the water. Looking back, she realises that she had slipped back into the perfectionism that had always been a part of her nature, convincing her that she wasn't good enough. She was surrounded by divers who had much more experience than her, and she felt that she was the worst in the group. She sought mental health support and has since been working on her insecurities. She is now at a point where she is learning to listen to herself more and find her footing. She says that things are stable now; she knows that she does her work well as a researcher, as an assistant to the students at the university and as a diver.
The young woman is really very impressive. She is what we call beauty with brains, and the vulnerability she showed me proves that we all need to take care of ourselves. We are enough, more than enough, and when we're learning something new, it's normal to be slower than, less knowledgeable than, or more fragile than someone who has experience in the field we're entering into.
Here are two videos of sunrises that Alexia enjoys as part of her work in the oceans.
I wish Alexia lots of luck as she continues on this journey, with much still ahead of her as she balances her studies and her work as a university assistant. May she continue to follow her passion, learn to be gentle with herself, and find many more adventures beneath the water!
You may want to listen me read this story on my podcast channel only for this kind of stories 'Evolution - Lekha Warrior Writes' on Apple or Spotify or on the direct link here https://open.spotify.com/episode/2K9UfD0dGMNK80UqcV7ZSz?si=rLkwiYl9TFSUb_uJvM-Azg
You may enjoy these stories of other people I've interviewed in Belgium and Denmark.
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