Bonnie Monteleone is the co-founder and Executive Director for the Plastic Ocean Project, Inc. based in Wilmington, NC. Her research engages citizen science with school-age children to university graduate students and to date has assisted over 130 UNCW students in Directed Independent Studies (DIS)on plastic related research projects.. She co-created the course "Plastic Marine Debris Field Studies" at UNCW and has received several conservation awards for her innovative research and outreach on marine plastic pollution. She was a co-investigator on the NOAA funded research project “Microplastic Ingestion in the Black Sea Bass, Centropristis striata.” She has also co-authored five scientific publications related to plastic pollution. Ms. Monteleone is also an accomplished artist who integrates the plastic she has collected from the world's oceans (near 10,000 nm) into modern artistic masterpieces and is currently producing a full-length feature documentary titled, If the Ocean Could Talk – A Voice for the North Atlantic. In 2017 she received the Governors Award for Environmental Communication, received the 2019 YWCA Women of Achievement for her environmental work, and a NC Coastal Federation Pelican Award in 2019.