2020 Pew Fellowship in Marine Conservation

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I am honored and thrilled to share the news that I have been selected to join the 2020 class of Pew Marine Fellows . My project supported through this fellowship is called "Applying underwater landscape mosaics to Caribbean coral reef conservation and restoration." The long-term goal of this work is to transform coral reef conservation by learning how to (a) best scale active reef interventions and (b) create conditions favorable for natural coral reef rehabilitation. Regional heterogeneity in reef restoration efforts creates an ad hoc experiment that could allow disentanglement of the effects of method, genetics, geography, and regulation on restoration success. Incompatible monitoring methods prohibit exploiting this natural experiment, however. Without knowing which interventions work best in what physical / political settings, we will never optimally achieve meaningful “scaling up” from thousands or tens of thousands of colonies to millions or billions. Ultimately, without coordinating diverse efforts, coral reef conservation will be compromised. The overall goal of this project, therefore, is to provide a framework for acquiring, processing, analyzing, archiving, and sharing the data necessary to evaluate the long-term effects of active coral reef interventions.

The two main objectives of this project are:

• To empower practitioners to start using underwater landscape mosaic technology for reef restoration monitoring.
• To enable community-wide cooperation by building the infrastructure needed to archive and share mosaics.

Of course, I'm happy to share more details - please contact me (address below). I particularly seek partnerships with anyone who is working in coral reef restoration with an interest in learning how to use underwater landscape mosaics to help their work - please contact me. Moreover I also welcome those who are already using mosaics who would be willing to collaborate on a regional strategy for improving restoration results - please contact me. I'm looking forward to using this tremendous opportunity to help as many people as possible.

25 March 2020