By Margaret Evans

Supporters of the Port Royal Sound Foundation gathered at the Maritime Center on Saturday for the organization’s annual fundraiser, Night on the Sound. The evening started with cocktails and bluegrass music on the patio, then the guests moved indoors for a wonderful dinner, followed by a presentation by keynote speaker, Carole Baldwin.

Chair of the Department of Vertebrate Zoology and longtime curator of fishes at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., Baldwin is one of the world’s leading experts on the “twilight zone,” a little-studied area of the ocean that lies 200 to 1,000 meters below the surface, just beyond the reach of sunlight.

After earning her Ph.D. from William & Mary in 1992, she became an inspiration to little girls everywhere when she starred in the 1999 3D IMAX documentary, Galapagos. She has published more than 100 scientific articles about her research, and even has a whole genus of fishes named after her, Baldwinella.

Baldwin grew up in Hampton, and her family moved to Beaufort when she was in college. In 2015, she bought her own home in Beaufort, where she spends as much time as possible and hopes to retire one day. For now, home is an apartment in Alexandria, Va., filled with treasured mementos from a lifetime of exploration.

For more on Carole Baldwin, visit https://naturalhistory.si.edu/staff/carole-baldwin. For more on the Port Royal Sound Foundation, visit www.portroyalsoundfoundation.org.