MTS San Diego Section: Cheers Oceaneers

Join MTS San Diego Section for Cheers Oceaneers, our monthly happy hour hosted in collaboration with the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society and TMA BlueTech™. Connect with fellow experts for engaging conversations about ocean science, engineering, the blue economy, and more! 

This month's presenter is Bilgenur Baloğlu, PhD — the scientist who learned to make  decisions in the dark, then taught others to do the same. In this presentation, Bilgenur traces her journey from detecting species in Singapore's reservoirs using environmental DNA, to co-founding Wild Genomics, to building an executive advisory practice — and reveals why the judgment required to run a field experiment and the judgment required to run a company are not as different as you'd think. The presentation will cover:

●  Dirty Data, Real Deadlines: What happens when your replicates disagree, your season is ending, 
and you have to decide anyway — and why that's the best training ground for leadership.

●  Building Wild Genomics: How she co-founded an atmospheric eDNA company that reads biodiversity 
from the air itself — hardware, molecular biology, bioinformatics, and all the chaos in between.

●  When the Fog Is Human: What changes when uncertainty stops being biological and starts being 
about people, capital, and governance.

●  The Framework: The structured judgment method she now uses with founders, investors, and senior 
operators who can't afford to wait for clean data — because no one
ever has it.

Date: March 11, 2026, Wednesday
Time: 5:30pm-8:30pm (PDT)
Location: Quantum Brewing (5375 Kearny Villa Rd #116, San Diego, CA 92123)

Click here to register.