Marine Biodiversity and Conservation

Dr. Aburto-Oropeza is an Associate Professor and Research Scientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, a National Geographic Explorer, and a professional photographer associated with the International League of Conservation Photographers (iLCP). He obtained his PhD at the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation at Scripps in 2009 and has since been recognized and awarded by UC San Diego, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Mexican Ministry of the Environment (CONANP), and distinguished as both a Hellman and Pew Marine Fellow. His research has focused on marine reserves, ecosystem services, long-term monitoring programs, and commercially exploited marine species and their fisheries in Mexico, Belize, Costa Rica, Ecuador and the U.S. Parallel to his science, his photographs have been integral to several conservation projects worldwide and have won several international photography contests.

Keiara Auzenne is the Director of Diversity Initiatives for the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. In this position she is tasked with improving campus climate and addressing issues of equity, diversity and inclusion for students, staff and faculty at Scripps.  Keiara formerly worked as the San Diego County Director for the Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO).   She is also the co-founder and director of a monthly Clean Slate Clinic that provides assistance formerly incarcerated individuals seeking to expunge their criminal records.  She serves on various UC San Diego campus committees, including the VCEDI Advisory Committee, the Chancellor's Committee on the Status of Women, and the Chancellor's Childcare Oversight Committee. In 2020, she received a UC San Diego Inclusive Excellence Award in recognition of her outstanding contributions in support of UC San Diego’s commitment to inclusive excellence and diversity.

Tarik Benmarhnia is an associate professor in epidemiology with a joint appointment at the University of California San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health. His work is combining epidemiological methods with environmental and econometric models with a specific focus on health policies and environmental justice. He currently conducts various projects in California and globally about the impacts of extreme weather events such as wildfires, heat waves and precipitation anomalies, and evaluates the effectiveness of population health and equity.

Mr. Brazier has worked in market survey research for over 35 years at CIC Research, Inc. His areas of concentration have been recreational fishery management, IT (Information Technology) business sector attitudes and preferences, customer satisfaction, and travel and tourism. He has directed surveys which collected socio-economic information from U.S. anglers and determined the preferences and attitudes of U.S. anglers. He designed a statistical fishery data collection system for the islands of Guam and Saipan, and pacific Coast Albacore Program. He assisted in the development of a sampling technique for a survey of marine recreational fishing along the Pacific Coast, entailing over 100,000 interviews. In addition, he has directed a comparative study to evaluate the optimal data collection techniques of recreational fishery efforts. In the area of IT, he directed hundreds of surveys of IT professionals for a major IT magazine publisher. Research topics ranged from salary surveys, technology adoptions, and awareness, customer satisfaction and others. Over the years, he has worked in various managerial positions in business consulting, venture capital and manufacturing. He holds BS (Utah State University), and MA (University of Washington) degrees in Economics and completed his classwork requirements for a PhD (UC San Diego) in Economics. Mr. Brazier is currently retired, but holds an Associate profession with CIC Research. 

Anela Choy is an Assistant Professor in the Integrative Oceanography Division at Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO), University of California San Diego. She has Ph.D. in Oceanography from the University of Hawaii and completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. Dr. Choy is a sea-going biological oceanographer who works in Earth's largest habitat, the deep sea. Research in Dr. Choy's lab centers on the structure and function of open ocean and deep-pelagic food webs, examining the impacts of climate change, fishing pressure, and large-scale pollution on these ecosystems. Sampling at different scales spanning the full water column and the diversity of inhabitants requires innovative technology (remotely operated vehicles, camera systems, etc.) alongside targeted laboratory methods. In her research, Dr. Choy applies a unique combination of biochemical tracers (stable isotopes, fatty acids, trace metals) alongside in-situ observations and traditional diet methods. Dr. Choy has led or participated in nearly 25 research cruises using a range of ROVs, submersibles, and fishing and trawl systems. Anela is a 2016 American Association for the Advancement of Science L'Oréal USA for Women in Science Fellow, a 2018 UNESCO-L'Oréal International Rising Talents Fellow, and a 2021 Sloan Research Fellow.  

Mark Jacobsen's research focuses on energy and environmental policy and addresses two main themes: the first is environmental regulation of transportation and the automobile industry, including the use of Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards and gasoline taxes. The second theme addresses optimal energy and environmental policy in the context of the broader economy, considering efficiency in the presence of Ricardian rents, untaxes activity in the informal sector, and green preferences. 

Lisa Levin is a sea-going biological oceanography and Distinguished Professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. She has a PhD from Scripps, served on the faculty of North Carolina State University for  9 years and has been on the faculty at Scripps since 1992. Her research addresses the ecology of animal communities at the sea floor, including deep continental margins and coastal wetlands. She currently studies the environmental drivers shaping oxygen minimum zone and methane seep ecosystems, and the larger consequences of climate change (including deozygenation) and human industrialization for the deep sea. This work has taken her to deep waters of the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic Oceans on over 40 research cruises, many employing submersibles, ROVs and AUVs. Dr. Levin is founder and co-lead of the Deep-Ocean Stewardship Initiative, an international, multidisciplinary network of experts providing guidance on environmental management and sustainability of the deep ocean. She is also co-lead of the Deep-Ocean Observing Strategy, a GOOS program linking scientific observation to societal needs. From 2011-2017, Dr. Levin served as Director for the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation at Scripps. 

Dick Norris' research focuses on the recent fossil record of reefs and coastal environments to evaluate the impact of human activities on these systems. He is particularly interested in how soil erosion and over-fishing of coastal marine environments has been affected by human social evolution. Hence, he has extensive interactions with marine archaeologists. In a recent research cruise, they addressed the questions, "What did the Romans (and other cultures) do to the marine ecosystems of the Mediterranean?" He has also worked on human impacts on the Mesoamerican Reef in Panama and Belize. His work has 'deep time' components as well. In recent research cruises, he has looked at the environmental record of SE Africa to understand how environmental change may have affected the progress of human evolution and the various "Out of Africa" migrations of humans and our ancestors. He is also interested in broader questions of Earth evolution such as whether the earth has a 'heartbeat' of biological production and how the history of oxygenation of Earth has affected the structure of marine ecosystems. 

Shaista A. Patel works as an Assistant Professor of Critical Muslim Studies in the Department of Ethnic Studies at UC San Diego. She is also an affiliate of the Critical Gender Studies program here. Her scholarly and all other political investments are in several questions that draw upon theories in Indigenous (to North America and South Asia), Black, Dalit, anti-caste, Muslim and transnational feminist studies. Her current book project engages with questions of animal-human relationalities at the intersections of contemporary and historical manifestations of casteism, anti-indigeneity, and anti-blackness within the context of South Asia and north America (U.S./Canada). Most of her work to date has examined questions of complicity of people of color at the confluences of multiple and complex racial, casteist, and colonial formations.

Her research areas include: Indigenous critical studies; transnational feminist studies; critical animal studies; queer and feminist theory; cultural politics of race, sexuality, nation, and immigration; theory and criticism; cultural and social movements.

Isabel Rivera-Collazo is an Assistant Professor of Biological, Ecological and Human Adaptations to Climate Change at the Department of Anthropology and Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and directs the SIO Human Ecology Laboratory. Prof. Rivera-Collazo is native to Borikén (Puerto Rico). Her work combines earth sciences, archaeology and marine ecology to understand social vulnerability to climate and environmental change, in particular through food and habitat security in coastal and marine areas. Through geoarchaeology and archaeomalacology, Prof. Rivera-Collazo works to identify lessons from the past that are relevant to communities in the present. Her research project DUNAS, combines sand dune restoration, cultural heritage and climate change to stimulate community resilience. Most recently, Prof. Rivera-Collazo leads the California Heritage Climate Vulnerability Index research project together with the CA State Historic Preservation Office. Rivera-Collazo works with the Borikua/Taino communities in Puerto Rico and the Tongva community of Catalina Island in California. Her work highlights the importance of building horizontal partnerships with indigenous communities through citizen science and communal archaeology. Her practice emphasizes collaboration to identify community-relevant research questions, where the recovery of past knowledge can help decolonize historical accounts and can contribute to answering questions and solving climate-related issues in the present. 

Sarah is the National Seafood Strategy Coordinator for NOAA Fisheries. She provides strategic advice to NOAA Fisheries leadership and designs ways the federal government can partner with industry and others to increase the value of U.S. commercial fisheries, expand U.S. aquaculture production, transition innovative R & D to commercial use, and encourage Americans to eat more U.S.-produced seafood. This includes the development of the agency's first National Seafood Strategy, research on seafood market pathways, seafood value chains, local and direct markets and barriers to U.S. seafood in U.S. markets. Sarah has also worked for over a decade in international science and policy for highly migratory species for the NOAA Fisheries Southwest Fisheries Science Center, strategic planning and science communication.

Jen is a coral reef ecologist with primary expertise in benthic communities (marine plants, corals and other invertebrates). Her primary interests are in determining how various physical and biological processes affect the structure and function of marine communities. Jen has been interested in determining how human impacts affect or alter marine communities. Currently, Jen and her students are working on understanding how local stressors such as pollution, overfishing or the introduction of invasive species affect coral reefs. Jen's lab is also working to determine how global stressors associated with climate change such as warming or ocean acidification will alter reef species. Much of the research in the Smith lab is focused on marine conservation and restoration of degraded habitats and often involves multidisciplinary activities. Jen and her students are actively working to develop effective management strategies for coral reef communities around the world