Dr Elin Claridge
Elin currently runs a guesthouse with her Polynesian husband and two young daughters, on an island in French Polynesia (Tahiti) called Rurutu. Entomology is one of the reasons she washed up in French Polynesia. Her first trip to Tahiti was as a graduate student doing research for her PhD thesis, working on the evolutionary history of a genus of broad-nosed weevils (Rhyncogonus spp., subfamily Entiminae) endemic to the central Pacific. After finishing her thesis and falling in love with an island man, she moved to Moorea, where she coordinated a terrestrial arthropod survey of French Polynesia, for the University of California, Berkeley, based at the Gump research station. When her husband’s business needed a new manager she jumped at the chance to live on Rurutu, one of her favorite Pacific islands. She’s now given up research for a very different career, but she is still interested in the natural world, and loves her life in Rurutu.