Our lab uses a variety of quantitative and empirical tools to investigate the dynamics of marine populations and communities across a range of spatial and temporal scales.

The overall goal of the lab is to investigate factors affecting the population dynamics of marine fisheries across spatial scales. Consequently we work on topics ranging from small scales, focused on individual behavioral decisions (e.g., predator-prey interactions), to large scales, dealing with the influence of larval dispersal, oceanographic conditions, and fishery management strategies on source-sink dynamics, fishery productivity, and the design of marine protected areas.  In all of our efforts we strive to make our analyses relevant to near-term management needs by focusing on short-term, ‘transient’ population dynamics.

Current research topics in our lab include the adaptive management of marine protected areas, the effects of coastal hypoxia on fishery monitoring and management, the role of nonconsumptive (fear) effects of predators on fishery populations, the effect of age and growth estimation error on fishery stock assessments, and the ability of sea turtles to adapt mating systems to a warming climate.

We are not currently recruiting new students.

In all of our work, we acknowledge and are cognizant of the systemic oppression that is present in the world at large and in academia specifically. In our lab, we strive to educate ourselves and reduce barriers for inclusion in our lab and our department. We aim to ‘become comfortable being uncomfortable,’ because that discomfort will push us to do the ongoing work to improve ourselves. As a lab, we have agreed upon a list of actionable items to translate these views to actual change. For more info, see our Diversity Statement.