CONSERVATION EXPERIENCE

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As a Caribbean Climate Resilience Stanback Fellow, I worked on EDF's Fisheries and Oceans team in their San Fransisco office. I designed a large-scale poster on mangrove creek restoration and contributed to a national mangrove restoration roadmap for The Bahamas. I also co-wrote a blog post about EDF’s work in participatory mapping for blue bond milestones in Belize and assisted with grant writing for funding the designation of a new protected area in Belize.

During a fellowship with Duke Restore as their Coral Team Lead, I created a consulting service which provides pro bono technical and capacity support to coral reef restoration organizations. I developed and maintained relationships with four partner organizations, and recruited, mentored and managed ten students on five different consulting projects. As part of this role, I trained students in Eastern Tropical Pacific reef fish identification and remote underwater video analysis techniques, and developed data processing methods for Galápagos Reef Revival. To conclude the year, I led a survey of coral populations at the Duke Marine Lab, including developing research questions and methods, procuring equipment, training seven undergraduate students on protocols, developing a safety and risk management plan for field work, planning logistics for a two day field course, and supervising field research activities

As an MPAtlas Intern for Marine Conservation Institute, I assessed MPA effectiveness globally by locating and reading management plans, legal documents, and news articles from Spanish, English, French, and Portuguese-speaking countries and using the MPA Guide to calculate protection level and predicted outcomes. I communicated with external partners to confirm assessments and focused on MPAs in Belize, The Bahamas, Chile, Cuba, France, Honduras, Mozambique, Puerto Rico, and the U.S.

At the Mexican National Commission of Natural Protected Areas (CONANP), I developed and delivered a Spanish workshop series to marine park employees on data science, R coding, and fish identification, working towards the capacity-building goals of Cozumel National Marine Park’s management plan and Coral Reef Alliance’s reef restoration projects. We covered topics such as data transformation, biodiversity analyses, and data visualization. I additionally contributed to MPA management needs through organizing permitting paperwork, conducting scientific dives to monitor reef fish and invertebrates, and participating in marine park surveillance.

As a Bilingual Naturalist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, I delivered presentations to international audiences of over 500 on marine conservation topics like deep sea mining, sustainable fisheries, wildlife rehabilitation, ocean plastics, and climate change. I provided exhibit interpretation in Spanish and English to increase accessibility and inclusivity.

As a dive instructor for Blue Endeavors, I taught marine ecology and trained middle and high school students in research diving in Monterey and on expeditions worldwide. I lead dives using underwater survey methods and reef restoration techniques. On an expedition to Roatan, I helped train local students in diving skills to work towards the goal of becoming divemasters. I also acted as a Spanish-English interpreter for Honduran students and U.S. dive professionals. I also wrote ocean conservation project briefs, blog posts, social media posts, and literature reviews.

The Sunflower Star Lab aims to restore California kelp forests by reintroducing the sunflower star, a keystone species. As a lab volunteer, I cultivated bat stars and purple urchins by maintaining algae culture growth, monitoring algae growth by taking cell counts, and feeding this algae to the echinoderms. I also monitored their growth by taking larvae counts and measurements, and built new lab equipment.

As a Development Intern for Coral Reef Alliance, I researched facts and figures about coral reefs for external publications, wrote for the CORAL blog, created marine conservation posts for social media, and compiled information on grants. I also increased fundraising by using Salesforce and Excel to build donor profiles, fundraised for CORAL’s silent auction, and reached out to Facebook funders. By initiating contact with mid-level donors and cultivating relationships, I increased donation amounts by 66%.