Andrea Dutton from the University of Florida tells Mike about the many nuances of using corals to reconstruct past sea level. Sounds simple enough: find corals at depth z, date them to year t, and Bob’s your uncle. Yeah … no. Turns out there’s a lot more at play: 3D topography, plasticity in coral’s depth preference, challenging geochemistry, changes in turbidity. The list of complicating factors is long, but Andrea and her colleagues are working incredibly hard to provide better constraints of sea levels during past warm periods — a critical constraint for the models being used to project sea level into the future. On top of all that, Andrea is an outreach superstar and was recently selected as one of Rolling Stones’ 25 People Shaping the Future in Tech, Science, Medicine, Activism and More. Professional success doesn’t always come easy, though, and Andrea has had to work through challenges like big publication gaps, divorce, and raising young children during the tenure process.