Marathon Swimmer / Karah Nazor

Karah Nazor is a biologist, science teacher, aquarist (she raises 3 species of jellyfish in her lab), She loves to swim in oceans, lakes and rivers, Karah is also the Race Director of Swim the Suck, and she loves insanely spicy food and IPAs. Karah teaches scientific research, molecular biology, environmental science, general biology, and marine biology at The McCallie. In her lab, her team of research students embarks on a range of projects from the effects of ocean acidification on jellyfish, to spawning ctenophores for growing primary cell cultures in vitro, to optimizing hatching and methods for rearing freshwater fairy shrimp. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from James Madison University in 1999. She swam sprint freestyle and backstroke events for the JMU Dukes. She earned a Ph.D. in Gerontology from the University of Kentucky in 2005, followed by a postdoctoral research at the University of California San Francisco for 4 years where she studied prion disease.

Karah is from Chattanooga, TN. She started swimming competitively at the age of 7 for the Chattanooga Area Swim League’s East Ridge Youth Foundation. Her grandmother grew up in Suck Creek (she was born in the Pot House) in the heart of the TN River Gorge. She taught her how to make yodel calls which echoed down the canyon and she dreamed of swimming through that gorge one day. She was a student/athlete for the Girls Preparatory School (GPS) Bruisers. In high school, she remembers wishing they could put their yards in the river rather than the pool (the river was RIGHT THERE!) and she also knew that one day she would attempt to swim the English Channel. Fast forward through ~15,000 miles of natatorium swim practice, She finally found herself at home training for an Alcatraz race in the frigid waters of the San Francisco Bay at the South End Rowing Club. There, she befriended channel swimmers who inspired and encouraged her, and soon enough, she became one of them. There, she also learned to surf at Ocean Beach and became an abalone freediver.

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