Sarah Fangman

Superintendent

Sarah Fangman is superintendent of Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, overseeing management and operations of a protected area covering 3,800 square miles. She was appointed to the position in July 2017 after serving as superintendent of Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary in Georgia. Fangman has been with the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries since 1998, after serving as a U.S. presidential management fellow with NOAA Fisheries in the Northwest and the Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program in Washington, D.C.

A marine scientist, Fangman was the science coordinator at Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary in California before becoming program coordinator for the sanctuary system's Southeast, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean region. In that capacity, she worked extensively in the Florida Keys conducting more than 600 dives in sanctuary waters.

Fangman earned a master's degree in marine affairs from the University of Washington and later obtained a U.S. Coast Guard 100-ton master captain's license in addition to being certified as a submersible pilot. She was twice a saturation diver at the Aquarius Reef Base, an underwater research laboratory located off Key Largo, and also served as diver and divemaster on multiple research missions in the Keys aboard the NOAA ship Nancy Foster.