About Us
Leadership
Samantha Whitcraft
Executive Director, Sea of Change Foundation
Samantha Whitcraft is Director of Conservation & Outreach for Aggressor Adventures® and Executive Director of the Sea of Change Foundation, Aggressor’s official conservation partner, a 501c3 nonprofit charity. Samantha’s work includes developing the company’s award-winning GREEN THE FLEET® sustainability program and creating the conservation grants and outreach programs at the Foundation. Over the past 30 years, as a marine conservation biologist, Samantha has worked from the field, lab, and office to protect the oceans’ ecosystems. Researching biodiversity, sustainable fisheries, and the illegal wildlife trade has taken her to the Amazon with National Geographic, to the Mesoamerican reef with NOAA’s Coral Reef Conservation Program, and to some of the most remote islands of the Pacific to develop citizen science and sustainable ecotourism while promoting ocean literacy. She has produced award-winning short environmental films and researched/reported on the impacts of the illegal wildlife trade in China. Samantha has served on the Water Resources Advisory Commission for the South Florida Water Management District, on the Sanctuary Advisory Council of the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary, and the board of the New England Aquarium’s Beach Teach Program.
Samantha graduated from Harvard University with a Bachelor’s in Natural Science focusing on marine conservation biology and earned her Masters of Marine Affairs and Policy at the University of Miami. She has taught formally at Miami Dade College and the University of Hawaii about environmental ethics, traditional ecological knowledge, and coral reef ecosystems.
Ms. Whitcraft is widely recognized as a leader in the field of marine conservation. After the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, she was recognized by the U.S. Department of Commerce/NOAA Fisheries with a national award for exceptional service in response to the disaster. Whitcraft was also one of twenty women selected for the Women’s Environmental Leaders Forum – Miami with the White House Council on Environmental Quality, principal environmental advisor to the President. She is an SSI Platinum Pro 5000 Diver, recognized by the scuba diving industry as an “elite water explorer”, the recipient of DEMA’s 2020 Wavemaker Award; she was Scuba Diving Magazine’s featured Sea Hero in May 2021, and she was inducted to the Women Divers Hall of Fame in 2024.
Samantha is an avid photographer and published nature writer living in her restored tiny house on a sustainable tree farm while raising her two beloved, rescue dogs – Daisy & Nugget.
