{"id":1188,"date":"2026-01-15T06:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T06:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/currents.bigelow.org\/?p=1188"},"modified":"2026-01-14T20:49:51","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T20:49:51","slug":"donor-profile-donna-and-charles-bagley-council-members","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/currents.bigelow.org\/?p=1188","title":{"rendered":"Donor Profile: Donna and Charles Bagley, Council Members"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Donna and Charles Bagley, Council Members<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The discoveries and innovations that come out of Bigelow Laboratory are only possible because of the generous contributions of donors. Our community of supporters help empower the next generation of scientists, inspire our research, and guide the future of our institution. Learn more about some of our donors in this story from the <\/em>Winter 2026 edition of Transect<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou turn over a patch of seaweed or a rock, and there\u2019s so much going on there. It was just interesting and wonderful for me as a child to be able to explore all of that.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Since she was a baby, Donna Bagley has visited the Boothbay region every summer. For years, her parents did the same. Before that, it was her grandparents. Today, Donna and her husband, Charlie, continue to spend their summers in Southport, and it\u2019s their children and grandchildren who are visiting. The couple have become fixtures in the Boothbay and Bigelow Laboratory communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Donna, who grew up in Ohio, she says those early experiences in Maine are what inspired her family\u2019s love of the ocean. She recalls happy memories fishing and digging for clams with her grandfather, and her house is full of art from her mother, an oil painter who specialized in ocean scenes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt all started as a child coming from the Midwest and being able to explore the beaches and the tidal pools,\u201d she said. \u201cYou turn over a patch of seaweed or a rock, and there\u2019s so much going on there. It was just interesting and wonderful for me as a child to be able to explore all of that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Charlie, a life-long sailor, his love of the ocean similarly began at a young age exploring the waters of Chesapeake Bay. As with Donna, many of his fondest memories are from his time out on the water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, for both of them, that childhood love of the ocean evolved into a passion for protecting it as they traveled widely and saw how degraded much of the world\u2019s coastlines are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI feel like for so long, the oceans have been viewed as a convenient dumping point for all of the detritus of modern human society with very little concern for the consequences,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re responsible for a lot of that damage, but we\u2019re also the only species that has the ability to say, why does this happen. And we\u2019re the only species that has the ability to say, what can we do to change it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That hope is what eventually led her and Charlie to Bigelow Laboratory. It was at a summer lecture, part of the annual Caf\u00e9 Sci series, that they began to appreciate the global reach of the institute\u2019s mission. Then, in 2022, they attended the Big Splash fundraiser and have been avid supporters ever since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Donna says they\u2019ve been particularly inspired by the institute\u2019s focus on educating both the next generation of scientists and life-long learners like themselves. Likewise, they appreciate the interdisciplinarity of the institute\u2019s research. As an example, she points to work being done by Bigelow Laboratory scientists to study algae blooms from space. Having spent a lot of time in Florida, she knows well how damaging those blooms can be. That research, she says, illustrates the power of creatively bringing together different areas of science to address a real-world challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was blown away when I realized the extent of what\u2019s being done all around the world, not just here, but looking toward solutions that can benefit the entire planet,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When they\u2019re not in Maine, the Bagleys live on Chesapeake Bay in Gibson Island, Maryland. They regularly champion the lab through a Donor-Advised Fund and have opened their home to other supporters through events like the Council Summer Outing this past August. Last year, Donna joined the Advisory Board, a role in which she\u2019ll be able to use her passion and optimism to help guide the future of the institution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo much of the news is negative and depressing, and particularly for people who aren\u2019t scientists, you begin to think, what can I do.\u201d she said. \u201cBut the thing that really impressed me about Bigelow was the optimism and sense that these are problems that can be solved and this is something I can support that will make a real difference.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The discoveries and innovations that come out of Bigelow Laboratory are only possible because of the generous contributions of donors. Our community of supporters help empower the next generation of scientists, inspire our research, and guide the future of our institution. Learn more about some of our donors in this story from the Winter 2026 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1192,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","css_class_manager_body_classes":"","css_class_manager_use_in_post_loop":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[53],"class_list":["post-1188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-laboratory","tag-transect"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/currents.bigelow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/currents.bigelow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/currents.bigelow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/currents.bigelow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/currents.bigelow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1188"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/currents.bigelow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1195,"href":"https:\/\/currents.bigelow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1188\/revisions\/1195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/currents.bigelow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/currents.bigelow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/currents.bigelow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/currents.bigelow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}