Lucy Hunt

Having grown up with the beach as her back garden in beautiful Waterville, Co. Kerry Lucy loves being in, on or under the sea and sharing her passion for all things marine with everyone!

She is the founder of Sea Synergy Marine Awareness, Research & Activity Centre. An advocate for the ocean, marine eco-tourism, conservation and connecting people with the sea, she is a marine biologist with a joint hons BSc degree in Marine biology/Zoology and a Masters in Marine Environmental Protection who sees the value in understanding our inherent connection with nature.

Lucy is passionate about helping rural coastal communities thrive and knows that the sea can help in the process offering a top class experiential learning, wellbeing tourism product and much more. Lucy has been shortlisted for Kerry business woman of the year and marine tourism awards in 2015 and in 2016 Sea Synergy was awarded an Irish Responsible Tourism Award in Best Natural Heritage Tourism. Lucy has been nominated as an Ocean Hero and Ocean Warrior her business Sea Synergy Marine Awareness & Activity Centre has also won an Irish Marine Tourism & Leisure Award. Sea Synergy also offers the Irish Marine Institutes Marine Explorers programme in Kerry and is rolling the marine programme out to thousands of primary school children in Ireland. Lucy has also been on the Heritage in Schools expert panel working nationally in Ireland introducing students to Ireland's amazing marine life.

Having worked around the world in marine research projects on seagrass, coral biodiversity and restoration, carbon sequestration, marine mammal observations, shark research and ecotourism she has a great understanding of how projects work from the ground up.

She consults and advises on marine education and ocean literacy, through this work she has managed The Ocean Race Learning programme creating award winning teacher and student resources on how amazing the ocean is and how we can look after our blue planet and all be Champions for the Sea, as well as a youth programme called Generation Ocean which are available in 8 different languages and have now been used by over 220K students in 81 countries. She has also worked on ‘Co designing for Resilience Iveragh’ in her community working with youth on marine topics related to the United Nations SDG’s 4 &14 inclusively creating a toolkit to increase excitement and connection with the ocean for wellbeing of people, place and planet! She is now senior advisor with The Ocean Race, having just complete 6 months working with the around the world sailing race in which she created the content for The Ocean Race Summits of which 6 were held on four continents with high level speakers such as the United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres and the final Summit held at the UN headquarters with many government leaders and ocean heroes calling for better protection of the ocean and recognition of the ocean’s rights.

Lucy has also just recently (March 2024) been shortlisted for the PwC IMAGE Business Woman of the Year Sustainability Champion.

She has lived on a sailing boat in Antarctica for 3 months guiding tours to see wildlife.