Gut Check

Is there a unique set of bacteria shared by surfers worldwide? By ZANDER MORTON With his Surfer Biome Project, Cliff Kapono hopes to find out

- Zander Morton

The public perception of surfers has come a long way since their portrayal in 1982’s “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” but surfers still battle stereotypes, especially around school campuses. Just ask any surfer who’s come to class with eyes tinged red from sun and saltwater and gotten skeptical looks from their professor. Pterygiums? Yeah, they’re not buying it.

So it makes sense that Cliff Kapono, a surfer and University of California San Diego (UCSD) graduate student studying biotechnology, bioengineering and chemistry, hid his affinity for the ocean from his teachers for the first half of his college career. “I didn’t want them thinking I was just chasing swells all the time,” Kapono says when asked about balancing surf and school at a campus just a stone’s throw from a playful La Jolla beachbreak. “I was afraid they would interpret it as if I didn’t take formal education seriously. But all that changed with the Surfer Biome Project.”