The first time Abby Steijlen visited the Florida Aquarium in Tampa was for her final interview for a new job. Before then, she’d worked exclusively as a video producer in sports, most notably with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and her alma mater, the University of Georgia. The move to the aquarium marked a professional jump, but she was ready for it.
Steijlen AB ’18 aced the interview.
“I work in a place where if I’m having a bad day I can sit in front of a 350,000-gallon exhibit and look at sharks and fish and rays,” says Steijlen, the Florida Aquarium’s video production manager since 2022.
But Steijlen isn’t content to just watch the aquarium’s residents through glass. Shortly after she was hired, she earned her scuba certification, which opened up a whole new world underwater. Steijlen regularly dives into the aquarium’s habitats to document aquatic life. Accompanied by a dive buddy, Steijlen often swims an arm’s length away from multiple sand tiger sharks. She isn’t fazed.
“It’s hard to be scared when you are surrounded by that kind of beauty,” she says. “Every time I dive I get just as excited as the first because I don’t know what I’m going to see next.”
Abby Steijlen smiles with her feathered friend Pebbles, an African penguin. She works with many different species, both on land and in the water. (Photo by Crysta Miller)
At UGA, Steijlen majored in linguistics. The summer before her senior year, she earned an internship with the NFL Network as a video editor. Before her internship, it was her focus on speech and language that made her application stand out. It certainly wasn’t her video experience, she jokes.
Before the internship, Steijlen hadn’t picked up a video camera since high school, and following a self-taught, crash-course on video production, she hasn’t put it down since. Her stint at the NFL Network led her to a role with UGA athletics; she spent her senior year capturing every UGA sport she could.
While Steijlen works in a visual field, her command of words contributes to her craft. Her job involves conducting interviews; knowing how to ask the right question to get the best response comes in handy. And then, it’s always effective to let the images do the talking. Steijlen’s most affecting work involves both, as well as direct partnerships with aquarium scientists and other professionals.
She has recorded the releases of dozens of sea turtles rehabilitated at the aquarium. Last fall after Hurricane Milton tore the roof off the Tampa Bay Rays’ home park, Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Steijlen recorded the rescue and transfer of the stadium’s beloved rays across the bay.
Steijlen aims to expand her field work to include open-water videography.
Later this year, if conditions allow, she hopes to film the outplanting of aquarium-grown corals in the Florida Keys.
“The aquarium isn’t just about entertainment,” she says. “We are a conservation-driven aquarium, and we do amazing work.” In addition to sea turtle and coral rehabilitation, the aquarium works to protect other imperiled wildlife around the world, Steijlen says. And it’s dedicated to keeping Tampa Bay and other Florida waterways clean.
“I’d never considered working in a place like this, but I haven’t regretted a second.”
