Quick Take
The Seymour Marine Discovery Center launched a new podcast Tuesday to connect Santa Cruz County’s scientists, problem-solvers and community members. While the new show spotlights local environmental success stories, the studio itself offers an inclusive space for anyone in the community to record and share their message, conservation-focused or not.
“I’m much more interested in building an audience of 10 superfans than 10,000 lukewarm fans,” said Jonathan Hicken, executive director of the Seymour Marine Discovery Center. “This show is for this community.”
The center’s new podcast, “Science, Solutions, Santa Cruz,” debuted Tuesday, marking the first production to come out of Seymour Studios, a newly built, state-of-the-art recording space located on UC Santa Cruz’s Coastal Science Campus. It was designed to make professional audio and video storytelling accessible to people across the community who lack the technical experience and equipment to produce it themselves.
The idea was born out of equal parts frustration and experimentation. Hicken co-hosts a side-project podcast, “Designing Tomorrow”, with Eric Ressler, creative director of the Santa Cruz-based creative agency Cosmic. As first-time podcasters, they took a DIY approach to production, which meant a lot of Googling, wrestling with unfamiliar audio software and fiddling endlessly with microphones and sound levels. That experience sparked a bigger question: Why not build a space that simplifies the whole process?
At the same time, Hicken was hearing a similar refrain in his role at the Seymour Center. “There is a fundamental problem that exists in this community when it comes to environmental storytelling: time, money, expertise,” he said. Scientists are busy running experiments, restoring our watersheds and writing grants. Policy leaders are shaping coastal resilience plans. Nonprofits are scrambling to deliver programs and get funding. Few have the bandwidth to produce polished multimedia content that translates complex work for a general audience. So he said he “built the studio to solve that very problem.”
Seymour Studios aims to remove those barriers with a sound-treated room and simplified “one-button” recording system integrating professional audio and artificial intelligence-assisted cameras. The pitch is straightforward: show up, press record, tell your story. A small usage fee will help cover operational costs and maintain the space, keeping it sustainable while remaining within reach for community members.
But the podcast is about more than convenience. It’s about identity. “We have a community of people who deeply care about this stuff. The ocean and the coast and nature and science and environmentalism … is deeply embedded in our DNA,” Hicken said. In his view, Santa Cruz County has cutting-edge research, innovative local solutions and an engaged public — but those strengths don’t always connect. The broader vision, he said, is “jacking up the amount of science and conservation and environmental storytelling that we are doing within this community.”
The podcast’s name, “Science, Solutions, Santa Cruz,” mirrors the three pillars guiding the Seymour Center’s long-term strategy: celebrate world-class science, spotlight tangible local solutions and strengthen Santa Cruz’s identity as a coastal community that takes care of its own backyard.
The first two episodes express that range. One features Katie Thompson of nonprofit Save Our Shores discussing a federal proposal to allow new offshore oil drilling. The second spotlights salmon recovery in the Santa Cruz Mountains, five years after the CZU Lightning Complex fires reshaped local watersheds, with an interview with UCSC professor Eric Palkovacs. The focus: dig into the science, but keep the lens on action and outcomes.
Hickens does not have a scientific background of his own, and said he sees that as an advantage in the storytelling space. He approaches interviews from a place of curiosity, asking the same foundational questions many listeners might have. The tone is less lecture, more neighborly deep dive. He said anyone interested should “come on in, join the party.”
Ultimately, the podcast is part of a larger push to position the Seymour Center as a collaborative gathering space for coastal resilience, a venue to connect researchers, community leaders and residents in ways that feel tangible and energizing. If it succeeds, the studio won’t just produce a show. It could help Santa Cruz County strengthen its growing reputation as a place where science, solutions, and civic pride go hand in hand.
New episodes will drop weekly on Tuesdays and are available on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. You can reach out to the Seymour Center at visitseymour@ucsc.edu.
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