I am currently a PhD student at Duke University with the Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab.  I have a MS in Environmental Science from Duke, and bachelor degrees in Aquatic Biology (BS) and Geography (BA) from University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).

Research

Conservation of marine biodiversity is limited by the high cost and low availability of data as well as competing interests of human activities.  My research addresses these challenges by collating disparate data sources and synthesizing predictive models that can further optimize spatial planning while elaborating on the ecology and biogeography in the marine realm.

How could industries, such as fisheries, military, oil and shipping, operate in a manner so as to minimize impact on sensitive marine biota?  How can observation data from telemetry, boat, plane, shore, platforms of opportunity, and genetics be combined into meaningful layers for this spatial decision support?  What are the most appropriate weights, priors, formulas and algorithms to apply?  How does the dynamic nature of oceanography and climate change factor into these analyses?