Environmental Advocacy Runs in the Reis Family
Left: Skylah Reis on a trip collecting data on offshore wind farms in the North Sea. This project studied how offshore wind farms enhance trophic web ecology (Photo courtesy of Skylah Reis). Right: Raquel Reis on Cuttyhunk where she interned for the Buzzards Bay Coalition in 2021 and 2022 (Photo courtesy of Raquel Reis).By Charlotte Van Voorhis
What are the Reis sisters up to? If you’re not sure, that’s OK—they’re pretty hard to pin down. But I bet each of the four sisters, born and raised in New Bedford, Massachusetts, is off trying to save the planet in one way or another.
The oldest, Skylah, could be on Nantucket co-directing the Madaket Marine Captains Academy, which aims to increase the number of women in maritime roles from today’s just 2% of the 1.2 million seafarers world-wide, or she could be somewhere in Europe giving a presentation on work related to her undergraduate studies in Integrative Biology at Harvard University and her International Masters studies of Marine Biology at IMBRSea. Skylah has also worked at organizations like the Maria Mitchell Association on Nantucket, Massachusetts and the Buzzards Bay Coalition in New Bedford, Massachusetts, following her passions of marine ecology all over the South Coast.
A few years younger, Raquel is bouncing back and forth this summer between Cuttyhunk, Massachusetts, where she works on an oyster farm, and Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she too is pursuing a degree at Harvard in Earth and Planetary Science, and conducting research before her junior year. Raquel has also worked in New Bedford at the Buzzards Bay Coalition and in Newport, Rhode Island building underwater robots at the Naval base.
Next is Tatum, who is soaking up her last summer before college—she will be attending Harvard as well to pursue a degree in Environmental Science and Public Policy. She also has an eye for sustainable fashion and often finds pre-loved clothing items for her vintage Instagram Shop, Never Expired. Tatum is also probably enjoying some time off from playing sports full-time in high school—she was the Standard-Times 2022 Field Hockey Player of the Year.
And the youngest Reis sister, Piper, can be found outside doing a hands-on science experiment at New Bedford’s summer science program, Sea Lab, before heading back to high school this fall. Her scientific passions are in the Herpetology department, the study of amphibians and reptiles. Piper has been keeping the Reis family name in the newspapers as she competes for New Bedford High’s Swimming and Diving teams during the school year.
The Reis sisters are certainly a force to be reckoned with—each is a climate activist and a scholar in her own right. Of Harvard’s four Environmental Science majors, the eldest Reis sisters’ interests cover three.
Family discussions often revolve around these themes as well. For instance, recent topics include: How can Tatum’s graduation party use compostable or recyclable materials so that waste is reduced? How can scary topics like climate change be discussed in a way that keeps people open and willing to learn? From within their family unit, the sisters have developed their own voices in climate activism and employ their talents in distinct spheres of sustainability.
The Reises had been focused on the natural sciences and climate change years before any Harvard acceptance letters arrived in their mailbox. Last month, I had the opportunity to meet Skylah and Raquel at Sorbae in New Bedford to hear their stories about academic and personal scientific pursuits.
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Despite her passion for marine science today, back in 2009 when Skylah Reis started attending Sea Lab as a fourth-grader, she was far from excited.
“My family would be at the pool and I would have to do science homework,” Skylah recalled. “I’m sure the homework was super easy looking back: for example, re-writing some simple paragraphs about the ocean. But I remember it feeling so difficult at the time.”
On a Sea Lab excursion, Skylah got to go onboard a tall ship entering New Bedford Harbor (Photo courtesy of Skylah Reis).By fifth grade though, the students started doing work outdoors and the program quickly became fun and engaging. Sea Lab offers opportunities for hands-on work like snorkeling off of Cape Cod, collecting specimen with neuston nets and homemade bamboo rods and even making their own Remote Operated Vehicles (ROVs) to do underwater exploration.
Skylah was followed to Sea Lab by her younger sister, Raquel who joked that at first, she didn’t want to do something just because Skylah did it, but she was also soon captivated by the marine ecology work out in the field and on the water.
“One of my favorite hands-on activities at Sea Lab was the ‘Fashion a Fish’ project,” said Raquel. “The premise was after a summer in Mr. Tweedy's class, learning about the anatomy and physiology of fish, you had to invent your very own fish, construct a model and write a report on it. It was a fun chance to play Mother Nature as an eighth grader!”
Growing up in New Bedford, the sisters developed a deep connection with their city and maintained their scientific explorations.
"As a young ocean scientist and climate advocate, I could not be more proud to have been born and raised in New Bedford, Massachusetts,” said Skylah.
“In a way, the city has been my role model,” Raquel added. “As I explore classes and internships in the world of Earth Science, it is evident my academic passion for climate resiliency is rooted in the subject's applicability to New Bedford. With so many advancements in the world of renewable energy and conservation, and so many to come, New Bedford has demonstrated that effort and optimism will go a long way as we navigate our delicate future.”
Young Raquel during a swim day at Sea Lab (Photo courtesy of Raquel Reis).All four sisters attended Keith Middle School and New Bedford High School, where their classes covered global themes as well as environmental issues. Both Skylah and Raquel attribute their sustained love of science to the many gifted teachers throughout their academics. Raquel’s Sea Lab instructor, Mr. Richard Huston, ended up teaching at least one of her science courses in all four years of her high school career and was a rock-solid presence in her scientific journey. The sisters’ AP Environmental Science teacher, Mrs. Patricia Gifford, was also a source of inspiration for their work around climate change.
“Mrs. Giffords used to say, ‘Yes, there’s a test at the end of the year and you should know this material for that, but this is also the stuff that really matters,” said Raquel. “I remember when Skylah first came home from Mrs. Gifford’s class and told us about global warming, I thought it was the scariest thing ever and that we were all going to die. But after learning about how we can fix things and make improvements moving forward, I saw that it wasn’t all doom and gloom.”
Both Skylah and Raquel are passionate about effectively communicating issues around climate change to a wider audience than just those in the academic field. After the two became aware of the environmentally damaging effects of the meat industry, they moved the whole Reis family to follow a vegetarian diet.
“You have to bring environmental issues back into a context people are comfortable with,” Raquel said. “Instead of talking about even 100 years from now, we can illustrate how to fight climate change now—for example, by limiting single-use plastics in our lives.”
In a profile for the Henry David Thoreau Foundation, Skylah said, “[In graduate school,] I saw the need to make the science less scary, eliminate the jargon and make things accessible. The average citizen is not going to read your papers. Podcasts, social media, ocean literacy narratives…are the way to reach people and build support for climate solutions.”
Left: Skylah collecting water samples from offshore wind farms in the North Sea off of Belgium for her masters degree internship (Photo courtesy of Skylah Reis).
Right: Skylah collecting data on rocky shore ecology on Lerins island off of Cannes, France for her masters degree project (Photo courtesy of Skylah Reis).
The Reis sisters are also passionate about the new position their home city of New Bedford is in with the nascent wind industry projects based out of the port.
“Wind has put New Bedford on the map in a huge way,” Skylah said. “Change is happening and we have to embrace it. But we can also take steps to learn from similar situations that went poorly in the past, for instance the mining industry ending before miners could be trained for new jobs.”
Raquel working in the Johnston and Pearson Labs at Harvard. Behind her is a chemostat where she cultured marine phototrophs to study oxygen cycling between the ocean and the atmosphere (Photo courtesy of Raquel Reis).“Fishing is a huge part of the fabric of New Bedford,” said Raquel. “It can’t just disappear and not make any difference in people’s lives. Between the community, the natural beauty and our deep relationship with the sea, I have high hopes for our maritime municipality.”
New Bedford is currently at the forefront of the wind industry with offshore wind farms already under construction 15 miles off of New Bedford Harbor. But the city is going through many more changes including the construction of an MBTA commuter rail from Boston and rising rent prices.
“I think New Bedford is in a good place right now,” said Skylah. “But what people are worried about is possible gentrification, especially with the new train line coming in, allowing people to move farther away from Boston and still commute to work, driving up rent prices further.”
Throughout the course of my conversation with the elder two Reis sisters, it was clear how much Skylah and Raquel cherish their city.
“I love New Bedford so much,” Raquel said. “Take me on a field trip to the Whaling Museum any day I will eat it up. This will be neither the first nor the last time that I express that the single most significant source of pride in my life is the fact that I am from New Bedford. In my 20 years of life, this incredibly special city has given me all of the love and opportunity that I ever could have wished for.”
Skylah agreed saying, “If I have kids we will live in a place just like New Bedford, if not here. And they will go to a school just like New Bedford High School, where you get such a global, diverse learning environment as a student without having to leave the South Coast.”
As for what’s next for the two eldest Reis sisters? Skylah is pursuing her doctoral degree at the University of Cambridge in the U.K. Side note: She’s already studied in Portugal and France through her IMBRSea Erasmus Masters program.
Raquel also wants to see what other places in the world have to offer.
“But I will always position myself to give back to New Bedford in any way that I can,” Raquel said. “My overwhelming sense of gratitude for New Bedford has naturally motivated me to return that love and care to my city, as I intend to work alongside New Bedford in its valiant, current and future efforts to combat the climate crisis.”
“As I continue to carve out my niche in the climate resiliency sector as an ocean scientist, I am so proud to come from a city that supports such big work in such a big way," said Skylah.
Regardless of how their paths evolve and where their work takes them, it’s clear that New Bedford and all of its lessons always travel with the Reis sisters, who in turn, always look for ways to continually give back to their city.
