Dr. Tommy Michot was born and raised in south Louisiana. He is of Acadian descent, and hence is a “Cajun.” He worked for 30 years as a research biologist and pilot for the US Department of the Interior, and is now on the graduate faculty at the University of Louisiana, where he serves as a Research Scientist for the Institute for Coastal Ecology and Engineering. He has spent his career studying wetland flora and fauna, primarily in the coastal marshes of Louisiana, and the Gulf of Mexico coast from Florida to Texas and Mexico, and the Caribbean coast of Guatemala and Honduras.