Austin has been involved with remote data acquisition since the 1990s. Much of that time was spent developing expertise with Campbell Scientific Inc and their dataloggers as an applications and field engineer. His time working at sea started in 2011 with the United States Antarctic Program; in five years with that program he completed over 20 cruises to the Southern Ocean on their research vessels. He started sailing cruises with UNOLS in 2016. Passion for the sea spread to owning, cruising and maintaining sailboats to 38’ including 4 ½ years living aboard in Bellingham, WA. While not a full time employee of BIOS, Austin provides contracted support to the operation of BIOS's research vessel, the R/V Atlantic Explorer.