Monday, February 17, 2025

Zenato, Berhannan, Charash Announced As Honorees of Beneath The Sea’s 2025 Divers of the Year

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Beneath the Sea has announced that Norman Berhannan, Dr. David Charash and Cristina Zenato have been named Divers of the Year: Class of 2025.

Berhannan spent his early years snorkeling and spearfishing off the shores of Long Island, New York. Scuba certified in 1970, he has since made over 2500 dives. He attended the first Beneath the Sea scuba show at the Westchester County Community Center in 1976, and since then has been volunteering as Senior Director of Guest Relations. Today, he serves as a Trustee.

A PADI certified scuba instructor and former aquatic instructor for the Physical Education department at Stony Brook University, he’s also a former president of the Aquatic Voyagers Scuba Club, the New York chapter of the National Association of Black Scuba Divers, and member of their executive board since 1996.

Dr. David Charash has been a Hyperbaric and Dive Medicine Physician for over 30 years. He received his initial training in Emergency Medicine and Hyperbaric Medicine in Detroit, Michigan. He is board certified in Emergency Medicine and Undersea/Hyperbaric Medicine.

Charash has supported the Undersea Community both nationally and internationally, through lectures, symposiums and workshops. He has offered education and training in all aspects of Dive Medicine, Dive Safety and Dive Technology.

A board advisor to both the New England Aquarium and the Maritime Aquarium Dive teams, Charash has volunteered as a Field Researcher with the Divers Alert Network. He was awarded the DAN/Rolex Diver of the Year in 2022 and recognized by the Naval Undersea Medical Institute for his dedication and support of the Navy’s Undersea Community.

Born in Italy, Cristina Zenato grew up in the Congo where she developed her love of the outdoors. In 1994, she become an Open Water diver. A year later, she was a PADI Open Water Instructor with 800 logged dives. She is a PADI Course Director, advanced cave diving instructor and mixed gas/rebreather instructor. She spends her time teaching, working with sharks, exploring and mapping underwater cave systems.

Additionally, Zenato is a shark behaviorist and ecologist. She is the first diver to connect an ocean blue hole with a land-based cave. A part of several expeditions, she has appeared on TV programs such as the BBC’s “Blue Planet Live.”

Zenato’s advanced survey technology, creating interactive and 3D maps, is in extensive use. In 2019, she founded the nonprofit People of the Water, widening studies of water, ocean and environmental issues. Additionally, Zenato is an inductee in the Women Divers Hall of Fame and is a member of the Explorers Club.

John Liang
John Lianghttps://www.deeperblue.com/
John Liang is the News Editor at DeeperBlue.com. He first got the diving bug while in High School in Cairo, Egypt, where he earned his PADI Open Water Diver certification in the Red Sea off the Sinai Peninsula. Since then, John has dived in a volcanic lake in Guatemala, among white-tipped sharks off the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica, and other places including a pool in Las Vegas helping to break the world record for the largest underwater press conference.

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