Even at that extreme depth, dressed in hard-hat suits that made the two men feel like “we were walking on the moon,” the water is breathtakingly clear and blue. He can still barely contain his excitement when he remembers what it was like. “We found new species or new Bermuda records on every dive,” he says. “There was astounding biodiversity.”

Schneider calls that environment, knee-deep in meadows of submarine plants growing out of coral rubble, “the very basement of science,” the place where his work— where life itself, for that matter—begins. Since those first expeditions with Searles, he has made 10 collecting trips to Bermuda, diving repeatedly and developing, in the process, one of the most extensive collections of Bermuda marine flora in the world.

This work informs all of his classes. “Students are intensely curious about what their professors are working on,” he says. “They want to be reassured that we on the faculty are scientists in our own right. They want to know where our passions lie.”

In the more than 30 years since he came to Trinity, Schneider has inspired hundreds of students. Some have gone on to successful careers in healthcare and the sciences. Others, like Schneider himself, are pursuing careers in academia.

Lane, who graduated in 1999, “was one of those students who couldn’t get enough,” says Schneider. So Schneider rewarded him with an opportunity to collaborate. During the summers of 1997 and 1998, Lane collected and identified mud-dwelling algae from freshwater Connecticut wetlands and riparian environments, research that resulted in four published papers while he was still an undergraduate.

“I came to Trinity thinking I would study marine invertebrates,” he says, “but then I met Craig. His enthusiasm for what he does really got me interested and changed the course of my career.” Having recently completed his own doctoral program, at the University of New Brunswick, and post-doctoral research at Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Lane joined the faculty of the University of Rhode Island this fall.

Dan McDevit, a 2001 Trinity graduate who is currently completing his Ph.D. at the University of New Brunswick, also published several scholarly papers on mud-dwelling algae as an undergraduate, with Schneider’s help.

In 2005, McDevit joined Schneider as part of a Trinity team trekking through Tibet. And last January, just before Schneider and Lane left for Bermuda, McDevit accompanied him on another expedition, this time in Nepal’s Annapurna range. There, in the shadows of the world’s tallest mountains, miles of longitude and elevation removed from the blue deeps of Bermuda, they did what plant taxonomists do. Searching mud from the edges of mountain streams so clear and cold that, says Schneider, “the rocks don’t appear to have biofilms on them,” they collected samples of some of the most primitive plants on the planet.

“Craig is a fantastic teacher,” McDevit says. “He engages all of his students and inspires them to do good work.”

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