Susan Rickards P '21, '25

Susan Rickards P ’21, ’25

Upper and Middle School STEM and Hawaiian Studies Teacher

Ms. Rickards, who joined the Parker School faculty in 2011, was born and raised on O’ahu and has lived on Hawai’i Island since 1995. Her extensive experience in the field of marine biology includes four years researching and training bottlenose dolphins and field research on humpback whales through the University of Hawai’i and Cornell University. Her experience also includes three years in Far East Russia researching gray whales and two years on Midway Atoll as principal investigator of a spinner dolphin research project. Ms. Rickards serves as co-founder, co-principal investigator and board member of the Hawai’i Marine Mammal Consortium, a nonprofit researching marine mammals off the Kohala Coast. She holds her master’s degree in human and animal cognition and psychology from the University of Hawai’i, Mānoa, and a bachelor’s in biology from Reed College. Ms. Rickards and her husband, Billy, have two children, one is a Parker School student and the other an alumna. She describes her educational philosophy as “ever evolving and based on comfort, respect, intrinsic motivation, experiential learning and integration across fields.”