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Explorer and Scholar
Kenny Broad ’84 explored his way to the education he now passes on to PhD students at the University of Miami
Kenny Broad ’84 treats life like the underwater caves that for years lured him to the deepest and most perilous outposts of the underground world: He explores it. And then he emerges with stories of discovery.
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Broad’s current job is easily the least dangerous he’s ever held. He is director of the University of Miami Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy and oversees an eclectic team of PhD candidates who refer to themselves as the BROAD (Breakthrough Research On Anything Distressing) Lab.
His students benefit from every remnant of their fearless professor’s white-knuckle past. An environmental anthropologist who was the National Geographic Explorer of the Year in 2011, Broad cave-dived to previously unknown depths in Mexico. He collected venomous sea snakes in Vietnam. He drilled coral core samples from the remote Micronesian atoll of Kapingamarangi to reconstruct climate history. He spent weeks working in inner city Jamaica, researching how crack cocaine had spread through its communities.
The BROAD Lab website explains that its students “dive headfirst into today’s most convoluted and cryptic environmental problems.” More simply, Broad says, his doctoral candidates take on “wicked problems.” It’s a descriptor for the interdisciplinary environmental enigmas he found himself frequently confronting from his earliest days as a young explorer, back when serious research was the farthest thing from his mind, and all he was seeking were lucrative jobs and adventure.
As he explored the seas in his 20s as a gung-ho diver and boat captain, working with the academics and government researchers who hired him out for his practical skills, he encountered ecological problems that had deceptively clear solutions – yet if those solutions required human behavioral changes, they frequently did not happen.
As he dived in remote areas across the globe, always engaging with local denizens, Broad came to realize that scientific discovery inspired action only when scientists understood problems in the context of human behavior, and then communicated their findings as skillfully as they had engaged in their research.
The more he was exposed to cutting-edge science, the more he came to believe that incorporating the study of humanity and plain writing mattered as much as the scientific breakthroughs themselves.
That recognition drove Broad back to a place that did not engage him as a youth: the classroom. Enticed by what he had been experiencing and observing, the once-halfhearted student sought to understand the human dimensions of environmental problems such as overfishing, declining water resources and climate change. As a newly minted member of the United States Cave Diving Team, he enrolled in the PhD program in anthropology at Columbia University. He earned his doctorate at 33, then began a 15-year stint as co-director of the university’s Center for Research on Environmental Decisions.
Still connected to Columbia, Broad has authored or coauthored dozens of peer-reviewed scientific papers. He also shares his work via videos, speaking engagements and virtual classrooms, often as part of National Geographic’s speakers bureau. In 2006, he received the RE Founders’ Award for distinguished service to the community.
He believes in the power and necessity of storytelling, which, in his view, represents an increasingly critical role for scientists – sharing significant discoveries in a way that will capture the imagination of lay people and, when appropriate, create momentum for political change.
Even after several lifetimes of incredible journeys, Broad’s voyaging continues. He still leads research expeditions around the globe, while also exploring vicariously through the innovative projects of the University of Miami PhD students whom he unapologetically pushes outside of their comfort zones. His personal journey doesn’t have an ending, but it’s peppered with, quite appropriately, some terrific stories.
Kenny Broad, The Student
Broad began his life as a kid explorer, growing up on Miami Beach and learning to scuba dive at 11. He spent nearly all of his free time on the water, in his grandfather’s boat or on small boats with friends. He received an extraordinary education outside the classroom. He and his peers, which included former Ransom Everglades teacher Irene Bustamante ’83, swam, water-skied, surfed and free dived. They collected and examined sea creatures and dabbled in underwater photography.Remarkably, many in his friend group fashioned successful careers on the water. Daniel “Duffer” Malone ’83, an RE Hall of Fame swimmer, now serves as one of Hollywood’s pre-eminent marine coordinators; he has worked on dozens of movies. Peter Zuccarini ’84 is a well-known underwater cinematographer; he, too, has worked on dozens of Hollywood productions. James York ’82 has frequently joined them as a camera operator and stuntman. Broad and that trio worked together on the movie Into the Blue, which came out in 2005.
A water polo player at Ransom Everglades, Broad did not fare well in his studies. He freely acknowledges that his analytical skills fell short of his exploratory instincts. He describes himself as a C- student. “I was bimodal,” he explained. “I got As in classes I liked, and Fs in classes I didn’t.” A report card from his senior year reflects a losing battle in Math Analysis, where he received, quarterly, a D-, F, D and D+ (and a “1” for effort). His teacher included this handwritten assessment: “Kenny never took this course seriously. I don’t know why he took it all. He’s a charming boy. I wish him luck.”
The one skill Broad honed successfully at Ransom Everglades was the art of writing. He always liked stories. He earned a degree in literature from the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he enrolled in the College of Creative Studies. In 2019, the college invited him back to give the commencement address.
“You need to be able to write well, no matter what field you end up in,” he said. “If you end up in nuclear physics, but can’t communicate clearly, good luck getting funded. It’s the one skill you cannot get away without.”
Kenny Broad, The Cave Diver
After college, Broad and Malone attended the University of Miami together, each earning a master’s degree in marine science. But their main focus was finding ways to bring in cash by doing what they loved: being on the water. As certified divers and boat captains – Broad also had Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) and specialized dive training – they made good money as freelancers, landing gigs on movie sets that needed underwater stunts or staging. Those temp jobs expanded to government and university research trips, and Broad’s diving soon advanced to cave diving after he met the National Geographic Society underwater photographer and producer Wes Skiles.
For Broad, cave diving changed everything. The feeling that enveloped him as he floated through deep, largely unexplored underwater realms was like nothing he had experienced. The discoveries in the depths below astounded him. He has described cave diving as “the best job ever.” “It’s this whole experience of calmness,” he said. “This magic carpet ride through the underworld.” Yet the uncharted underworld carried risks. “It’s one of the least understood parts of our planet because it’s one of the least explored, largely because of the physical and mental challenges,” he said. “And the heavy downside of this career is losing a lot of very close friends.”
Skiles was one of them. He died during a dive in 2010 – not long after teaming up with Broad for breakthrough exploration of the Blue Holes of the Bahamas that landed on the cover of National Geographic magazine.
A decade before, Broad, who had just been selected to the U.S. Cave Diving Team, traveled to Oaxaca, Mexico, to explore the Huautla cave system, considered the Mount Everest of cave-diving because of its depth and associated dangers. The leader of the trip, Bill Stone, envisioned the effort as a chance to chart new territory in the sprawling cave, and also to learn skills and test out new technologies that could be adapted to Mars exploration.
Broad was thrilled to have been chosen for this prestigious quest. When he arrived, he paired up with a Brit named Ian Rolland. He and Rolland, both in their late 20s, became fast friends, and quickly descended farther into the cave than the rest of the team. When they reached the limit of previous exploration, the neck of the cave that had stymied previous explorers nearly 5,000 feet underground, they pressed on.
Broad was thrilled to have been chosen for this prestigious quest. When he arrived, he paired up with a Brit named Ian Rolland. He and Rolland, both in their late 20s, became fast friends, and quickly descended farther into the cave than the rest of the team. When they reached the limit of previous exploration, the neck of the cave that had stymied previous explorers nearly 5,000 feet underground, they pressed on.
Broad led the way, swimming through a dark and difficult passage until he finally reached a clearing, a cavernous opening into a pool of water and beach. Excited, he made his way back to his friend, and the pair celebrated their success. They were, Broad recalled, euphoric. They had officially gone farther than any previous explorers. Rolland decided to continue, eager to extend Broad’s newly discovered path. He swam off with his son’s teddy bear fastened to his diving gear.
Broad stayed behind, waiting. An hour passed, then two. At the sixth hour, with no sign of Rolland, Broad made his way back up through the cave to summon help from the rest of the team. The next day, Broad was reunited with his friend. He found him drowned on the far side of the opening he had been so excited to discover.
“Up to that point, it was the most fun I had ever had in my life,” he said. “I went from the highest of highs, to the lowest of lows.”
A few days after helping pull Rolland’s body out of the cave, Broad resolutely returned with others from the team to continue the exploration. He didn’t leave Huautla until flash floods trapped the team underground for three days and tore up their equipment.
Broad never forgot the experience, and never really got over the death of his friend. The story, though, has a sweet ending. A few years ago, Broad met Rolland’s son, the once-little boy who had given his dad the teddy bear he carried when he died. Connor Roe had followed in his father’s footsteps and become an accomplished cave diver. When 12 boys and their soccer coach got trapped in a cave in Thailand in the summer of 2018, Roe was summoned from the United Kingdom. Joining an international rescue that captured the world’s imagination, Roe helped bring out all 13 alive.
Broad stayed behind, waiting. An hour passed, then two. At the sixth hour, with no sign of Rolland, Broad made his way back up through the cave to summon help from the rest of the team. The next day, Broad was reunited with his friend. He found him drowned on the far side of the opening he had been so excited to discover.
“Up to that point, it was the most fun I had ever had in my life,” he said. “I went from the highest of highs, to the lowest of lows.”
A few days after helping pull Rolland’s body out of the cave, Broad resolutely returned with others from the team to continue the exploration. He didn’t leave Huautla until flash floods trapped the team underground for three days and tore up their equipment.
Broad never forgot the experience, and never really got over the death of his friend. The story, though, has a sweet ending. A few years ago, Broad met Rolland’s son, the once-little boy who had given his dad the teddy bear he carried when he died. Connor Roe had followed in his father’s footsteps and become an accomplished cave diver. When 12 boys and their soccer coach got trapped in a cave in Thailand in the summer of 2018, Roe was summoned from the United Kingdom. Joining an international rescue that captured the world’s imagination, Roe helped bring out all 13 alive.
Kenny Broad, The Academic
Even as Broad turned his focus to academia, he never stopped dueling with danger. Before he entered the PhD program at Columbia, he agreed to travel to Jamaica to gain field experience and assist professors there with a major research project on marijuana and crack cocaine use. He spent months in and around Jamaican crack houses, occasionally dodging bullets and witnessing horrific violence he was powerless to stop.
When he traveled to Vietnam years later seeking what would prove to be critical research on sea snakes, he spent weeks diving for the highly venomous creatures while studying the illegal wildlife trade. He woke up in his hotel one night and wondered why the floor was wet. Some two dozen deadly snakes that had been locked in a cooler had escaped, and were crawling around his hotel room. (He and his research partner eventually corralled them in a bathtub.)
There are so many stories: Broad and his longtime friend from RE, James York, ended up stranded for weeks on the tiny island of Kapingamarangi when the cargo vessel they were counting on failed to show up. During their unintended stay, York battled a debilitating leg infection and Broad accidentally downed a half pint of hydrogen peroxide. There was no available medical care. They suffered but survived. They finally got a lift home from a missionary boat.
Many of his explorations scared him. All of them shaped him. Occasionally, they made him laugh. Mostly, they engaged his intellect, awakened his sense of social justice and pushed him to learn more. In Vietnam, he was deeply troubled to discover that most people there had no access to effective anti-venom treatments for snake bites – even though anti-venom had first been developed in Vietnam. On Kapingamarangi, Broad saw clear signs of sea level rise in the saltwater intrusion affecting the taro gardens, and the hardships caused by climate variability on the tiny island’s populations.
“I was always as interested in the human dimension and equity aspects as the natural sciences,” he said. “When you see these problems in the context of real communities struggling with them – even though there is little scientific debate about the causes of the problems – you realize it’s not an information deficit, it’s a motivation deficit.”
When he traveled to Vietnam years later seeking what would prove to be critical research on sea snakes, he spent weeks diving for the highly venomous creatures while studying the illegal wildlife trade. He woke up in his hotel one night and wondered why the floor was wet. Some two dozen deadly snakes that had been locked in a cooler had escaped, and were crawling around his hotel room. (He and his research partner eventually corralled them in a bathtub.)
There are so many stories: Broad and his longtime friend from RE, James York, ended up stranded for weeks on the tiny island of Kapingamarangi when the cargo vessel they were counting on failed to show up. During their unintended stay, York battled a debilitating leg infection and Broad accidentally downed a half pint of hydrogen peroxide. There was no available medical care. They suffered but survived. They finally got a lift home from a missionary boat.
Many of his explorations scared him. All of them shaped him. Occasionally, they made him laugh. Mostly, they engaged his intellect, awakened his sense of social justice and pushed him to learn more. In Vietnam, he was deeply troubled to discover that most people there had no access to effective anti-venom treatments for snake bites – even though anti-venom had first been developed in Vietnam. On Kapingamarangi, Broad saw clear signs of sea level rise in the saltwater intrusion affecting the taro gardens, and the hardships caused by climate variability on the tiny island’s populations.
“I was always as interested in the human dimension and equity aspects as the natural sciences,” he said. “When you see these problems in the context of real communities struggling with them – even though there is little scientific debate about the causes of the problems – you realize it’s not an information deficit, it’s a motivation deficit.”
Broad, who is married to University of Miami professor Amy Clement and the father of Jasper Broad ’22 and Lincoln Broad ’26, urges his BROAD Lab students to follow his example, if not his specific, winding, turbulent career path. He challenges them to seek solutions for wicked problems, urging them to complement the admittedly important science on the surface with research on policy approaches, cognition and behavior.
His students describe him as demanding, crazy and inspiring.
Now a post-doctoral fellow at the Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions, Annie Brett traveled to Miami from Harvard University to pursue her PhD under Broad after speaking to him by phone.
“He was focused on this idea of interdisciplinary connections,” said Brett, who simultaneously earned her JD and will assume a job as a law professor at the University of Florida this summer. “How important it is that when you do science, you connect it to the real world, and not just in a hand-waving way. He wants you to think of more creative ways of conveying scientific knowledge to the public.”
Said Shireen Rahimi, a current student whose dissertation on human interactions with invasive lionfish on the island of Abaco includes a book, film and photography: “His conviction is that a good scientist needs to be able to write clearly, with minimum jargon and maximum lucidity. Throughout the program, we’ve always had to have elevator pitches ready. There no use in being a scientist if you can’t communicate what you are doing.”
“He really encourages his students to think outside the box,” said Stacy Aguilera-Peterson, who earned an undergraduate degree at Stanford before joining Broad’s research team to study marine resource management in the face of climate variability. She earned her PhD in 2017 and is now Policy Advisor at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “After five years of working with him, I feel like I’m an independent scientist. I can do anything on my own.”
That’s just what Broad wants to hear. He never aspired to teach as much as to put his students in a position to learn, and he continues to be motivated by learning from them. He is flat-out uncomfortable at the idea of being a source of knowledge. What he hopes to pass on is his yearning to explore.
“I’m not embarrassed to say, there was no plan for my life,” he said. “I still have no plan. The goal is to prepare yourself with enough skills that you can take advantage of opportunities as they arise. Don’t spend too much time looking back.
“Students need to push themselves out of their comfort zones. Explore as much as possible. Expose yourself to new things. If you play it safe all the time, you don’t get the big payoffs.
His students describe him as demanding, crazy and inspiring.
Now a post-doctoral fellow at the Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions, Annie Brett traveled to Miami from Harvard University to pursue her PhD under Broad after speaking to him by phone.
“He was focused on this idea of interdisciplinary connections,” said Brett, who simultaneously earned her JD and will assume a job as a law professor at the University of Florida this summer. “How important it is that when you do science, you connect it to the real world, and not just in a hand-waving way. He wants you to think of more creative ways of conveying scientific knowledge to the public.”
Said Shireen Rahimi, a current student whose dissertation on human interactions with invasive lionfish on the island of Abaco includes a book, film and photography: “His conviction is that a good scientist needs to be able to write clearly, with minimum jargon and maximum lucidity. Throughout the program, we’ve always had to have elevator pitches ready. There no use in being a scientist if you can’t communicate what you are doing.”
“He really encourages his students to think outside the box,” said Stacy Aguilera-Peterson, who earned an undergraduate degree at Stanford before joining Broad’s research team to study marine resource management in the face of climate variability. She earned her PhD in 2017 and is now Policy Advisor at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “After five years of working with him, I feel like I’m an independent scientist. I can do anything on my own.”
That’s just what Broad wants to hear. He never aspired to teach as much as to put his students in a position to learn, and he continues to be motivated by learning from them. He is flat-out uncomfortable at the idea of being a source of knowledge. What he hopes to pass on is his yearning to explore.
“I’m not embarrassed to say, there was no plan for my life,” he said. “I still have no plan. The goal is to prepare yourself with enough skills that you can take advantage of opportunities as they arise. Don’t spend too much time looking back.
“Students need to push themselves out of their comfort zones. Explore as much as possible. Expose yourself to new things. If you play it safe all the time, you don’t get the big payoffs.
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Founded in 1903, Ransom Everglades School is a coeducational, college preparatory day school for grades 6 - 12 located on two campuses in Coconut Grove, Florida. Ransom Everglades School produces graduates who "believe that they are in the world not so much for what they can get out of it as for what they can put into it." The school provides rigorous college preparation that promotes the student's sense of identity, community, personal integrity and values for a productive and satisfying life, and prepares the student to lead and to contribute to society.