An Interview with Marlon Lewis

Marlon Lewis has a couple instruments to throw overboard as well. He is working with the ______ Camera, or RAD Cam, and the Hyper Probe (Hyperspectral Profiler). The RAD Cam is a black device with a camera positioned on either end under a glass hemisphere. Each end has a fisheye lens that measures the radiance distribution of a single color in order to determine how the light environment is changing in terms of geometric structure. The Hyper Probe resembles a small, black rocket. It can measure the distribution of light descending through the water as a function of wave length. In other words, it assesses how much red, blue, and green light penetrates the different layers of water.

Lewis is a curious combination of scientist and businessman. Originally he studied to be a high school teacher, but “it was the hardest job of [his] life.” A special professor encouraged him to return to school, where he studied the biology-physics interface of the ocean toward his PhD. Today he is a professor at the Dalhousie University in Halafax, Canada, and he sells instruments like the RAD Cam on the side. He says business isn’t all that different from what people like Dickey are doing. Scientists have to sell their ideas and manage resources, projects, and time, much as businessmen have to. Perhaps scientists are more creative, Lewis allows, content to live both sides of what he views as the same coin.