Principal Investigator: Will White
I am a quantitative fisheries ecologist who links models to data to understand ecological mechanisms and inform management.
I began my career in graduate school at UC Santa Barbara as a field ecologist studying Caribbean reef fish behavior and population dynamics. As a postdoctoral scholar at UC Davis I developed spatial population models to advise the placement of California’s marine protected areas through my work with the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative. Since then I have tended to blend empirical and theoretical research; I find that my experience in the field grounds my models in reality and improves the communication of my results, while my modeling expertise leads to creative analyses and new insights with field data. I am broadly interested in spatial fisheries management, the short-term dynamics of population responses to management, and the effects of climate variability and climate change on populations and fisheries.
I was on the faculty of UNC Wilmington from 2010-2017 before joining the Coastal Oregon Marine Experiment Station at Oregon State in 2017. I am also a co-PI in the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Study of Coastal Oceans (PISCO).
email: will.white@oregonstate.edu
Research Associates
Jess Hopf, Ph.D. (2020-present)
Jess is a mathematical ecologist who studies the population dynamics of fishes inside marine reserves and the dynamics of restoration and resilience in Pacific coast kelp forests. She earned her Ph.D. at James Cook University in 2016.
Recent papers:
Hopf JK, Giraldo-Ospina A, Caselle JE, Kroeker KJ, Carr MH, Botsford LW, Hastings A, White JW. 2025. Short-term management of kelp forests for marine heatwaves requires planning. Conservation Letters 18: e13130
Hopf JK, Quennessen V, Ridgway J, Barceló C, Prior Caltabellotta F, Farnsworth Hayroyan S, Garcia D, McLeod M, Lester S, Nickols KJ, Yeager M, White JW. 2024. Ecological success of no-take marine protected areas: using population dynamics theory to inform a global meta-analysis. Ecological Applications 34: e3027
Graduate Students
Jennifer Fisher (Ph.D.)
Jennifer is using a combination of ocean observations, ocean circulation models, and spatiotemporal statistical models to investigate the links between ocean conditions and the population dynamics of zooplankton on the northeast Pacific continental shelf. She is completing her degree while also working as a research associate at the Cooperative Institute for Marine Resource Studies and NOAA.
Recent papers:
Fisher JL, Zeman S, Morgan CA, Bolm A, Alin S, White JW. Productivity and transport, but not ocean acidification, explain variability in juvenile pteropod (Limacina helicina) abundance and phenology in the Northern California Current. Limnology and Oceanography, in review
Sabena Siddiqui (Ph.D.)
Sabena is studying the ecology of same-sex sexual behaviors in cetaceans. Her work is transdisciplinary, using a Queer Ecology perspective to understand how scientists’ cultural norms shape our understanding of animal sexual behavior. She is also using agent-based modeling to investigate the ecological contexts and selective pressures that favor same-sex sexual behaviors in toothed whales.
Andrés Pinos-Sánchez (M.S.)
Andrés is working on the population dynamics of bull kelp resilience and restoration on the Oregon coast. He is using multispecies population models of kelp and sea urchins to understand how different combinations of restoration activities could best conserve kelp forests. His models also investigate how those human actions might be affected by reintroducing sea otters to the Oregon coast, and how that reintroduction might affect the Dungeness crab fishery.
Recent papers:
White JW, Hopf JK, Pinos-Sánchez A, Rasmuson LK, Schmid MS, Novak M. 2026. Models reveal potential synergies in management actions for kelp forest resilience and restoration. Journal of Applied Ecology, in press
Lab Alumni
Postdocs
Jesse van der Grient (2022-2024)
Jesse is an ecosystem modeller who built an Ecopath-with-Ecosim model of the Falkland Islands coastal shelf ecosystem. She conducted field and lab work in the Falklands in addition to her modeling work. She is now a scientist at the Schmidt Ocean Institute
Lab papers:
van der Grient JMA , Morley SA, Arkhipkin AI, Bates J, Baylis AMM, Brewin PE, Harte M, White JW, Brickle P. 2023. The Falkand Islands marine ecosystem: seasonal dynamics and trophic interactions across the food web. Advances in Marine Biology, 94: 1-68
Mallarie Yeager (2021-2023)
Mallarie led a collaborative project with UC Santa Cruz modeling the population persistence of kelp forest fish species in the California MPA network. Her work combined species distribution modeling and Langrangian simulations of larval dispersal within ROMS to understand how connectivity affected the network performance of the MPAs. Her work ultimately informed the decadal evaluation of the California MPA network. She now works at the NOAA Alaska Regional Office.
Lab papers:
Yeager ME, White JW, Carr MH, Malone D, Raimondi P. 2023. Assessing connectivity across the California Marine Protected Area Network. Report submitted to the California Ocean Protection Council.
White JW, Spiecker B, Yeager M, Caselle JE. 2026. Marine protected areas and temperate reef fishes. In: Ecology of Marine Fishes: California and Associated Waters, 2nd Ed. (Allen LG, Pondella D, eds.). Johns Hopkins University Press. in press.
Laura Storch (2019-2022)
Laura is an applied mathematician who worked on the population dynamics of Eastern Oysters. She is now faculty in the Department of Mathematics at Bates College.
Lab papers:
Storch LL, Kimbro DL, Dix N, Marcum P, Garwood J, Stallings CD, White JW. 2023. Stark differences in spatial gradients of Eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) productivity in two Florida, USA, estuaries. Estuarine, Coastal, and Shelf Science 297: 108602
Fabio Caltobellota (2020-2023)
Fabio is a fisheries scientist who worked on the effects of uncertainty in age-size relationships on fishery stock assessment results, and while he was a postdoc he served as the Oregon Dept. of Fish and Wildlife representative on the Pacific Fishery Management Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee. He now works at Washington Dept. of Fish and Wildlife.
Caren Barcelo (2019-2021)
Caren worked on a collaborative project with UC Davis, modeling the spillover of larvae and biomass from marine reserves, to understand how to predict how soon reserve spillover could benefit fisheries.
Lab papers:
White JW, Barceló C, Hastings A, Botsford LW. 2022. Pulse disturbances in age-structured populations: life history predicts initial impact and return time. Journal of Animal Ecology 91: 2370-2383
Barceló C, White JW, Botsford LW, Hastings A. 2021. Predicting the time scale of initial increase in fishery yield after implementation of marine protected areas. ICES Journal of Marine Science 78:1860-1871
Graduate Students
Grace Roa (M.S., 2026)
Grace used integral projection models to understand how an invasive parasitic isopod species altered the demography of the native Pacific coast burrowing mud shrimp, Upogebia pugettensis.
Vic Quennessen (M.S., 2020; Ph.D., 2026)
For her M.S. project, Vic used population models to investigate how marine protected areas could be used as unfished reference points for fishery management. Then for her Ph.D. she worked on sea turtle population dynamics, using models to examine the importance of male breeding behaviors and evolution in maintaining population persistence in that species. Sex determination in sea turtles depends on temperature during incubation of eggs in nests buried in beach sand, so climate change is producing increasingly feminized turtle populations.
Lab papers:
Quennessen VI, Fuentes MMPB, Komoroske L, White JW. 2025. Power analyses to inform clutch sampling design to determine the breeding sex ratio in populations with multiple paternity. PeerJ 13: e20165
Quennessen V, Babcock EA, White JW. 2023. Accounting for transient dynamics could improve the use of marine protected areas as a reference point for fishery management. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 80: 85-104Margaret Campbell (M.S., 2024)
Margaret developed population models that investigated how large offshore windfarms could serve as “other effective conservation measures” because they restrict fishery access, and she used Oregon fishery data to project the consequences of wind farm closures on groundfish fisheries. She now works at the California Coastal Commission.
Lab papers:
Campbell MC, Samhouri JF, White JW. 2025. Modeling consequences of spatial closures for offshore energy: loss of fishing grounds and fishery-independent data. Ecosphere 16:e70336
Campbell MC, Liu OR, Samhouri JF, White JW. Spatial population dynamics models reveal tradeoffs for groundfish fisheries due to proposed offshore wind farm development in Oregon, USA. Scientific Reports, in revision
Montana McLeod (M.S., 2022)
Montana developed population models that showed how accounting for the effects of coastal hypoxia on the movement and detectability of groundfish in fishery-independent surveys could improve the use of those survey data in stock assessments. She also developed a new approach to estimate mortality rates in sub-legal pre-season male Dungeness crab. She now works on the oil spill response team at the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Chris Commander (UNCW Ph.D., 2019)
Christian’s Ph.D. research centered on using models and field data to examine how environmental disturbances affect predator-prey interactions and population persistence, particularly in Eastern oyster populations.
Lab papers:
Commander CJ, Stallings CD, Kimbro DL, White JW. 2026. Increasing frequency of extreme salinity disturbances on oysters and their predator is predicted to improve oyster population persistence. Journal of Animal Ecology 95: 313-326
Commander CJ, White JW. 2020. Not all disturbances are created equal: disturbance magnitude affects predator-prey populations more than disturbance frequency. Oikos 129:1-12
Alicia Cheripka (UNCW M.S., 2018)
Alicia used theoretical population modeling to investigate how we could use marine protected areas to manage species whose geographical ranges are shifting due to climate change. She currently works in the International Programs office at NOAA.
Lab papers:
Cheripka AM, Borrett SR, White JW. 2025. Managing range-shifting, competing species in marine reserve networks: the importance of reserve configuration and transient dynamics in age-structured populations. Theoretical Ecology 18: 4
Caitlin Phelps (UNCW M.S., 2017)
Caitlin’s thesis examined the potential for artificial selection to produce a positive correlation between maternal size and offspring quality, using guppies as a model system. She currently works as a scientist at the NC Division of Marine Fisheries.
Erin Easter (UNCW M.S., 2016)
Erin used population models to show how marine protected area planning and adaptive management should be adjusted to accommodate fish that are sequential protogynous hermaphrodites; that is, they begin life as female but change sex to male when larger. She is currently a graduate admissions advisor at the University of Missouri.
Lab papers:
Easter EE, Adreani MS, Hamilton SL, Steele MS, Pang S, White JW. 2020. Influence of protogynous sex change on recovery of fish populations within marine protected areas. Ecological Applications 30:e02070
Easter EE, White JW. 2016. Spatial management for protogynous sex-changing fishes: a general framework for coastal systems. Marine Ecology Progress Series 543: 223-249
Andrea Dingeldein (UNCW M.S., 2015)
Andrea used the record of early life history traits (larval growth and condition) preserved in the otoliths of coral reef fish to investigate the link between larval traits and post-settlement behavior. She is now an instructor at the CSUMB Scientific Illustration Program and freelance illustrator (website).
Lab papers:
Dingeldein AL, White JW. 2016. Larval traits carry over to affect post-settlement behaviour in a common coral reef fish. Journal of Animal Ecology 85: 903-914
Melissa Heintz (UNCW M.S., 2015)
Melissa’s thesis examined the effects of endocrine disrupting compounds on anti-predator behavior in guppies. She is now a Managing Scientist at ToxStrategies.
Lab papers:
Heintz MM, Brander SM, White JW. 2015. Endocrine disrupting compounds alter risk-taking behavior in fish (Poecelia reticulata). Ethology 121:480-491
Ashley Hann (UNCW Honors, 2017)
Hannah Sipe (UNCW Honors, 2014)
Emma Bogdan (UNCW Honors, 2014)
Erin McCarthy (UNCW Honors, 2014)
Kaela Vogel (UNCW Honors, 2014)
Amanda Jefferson (UNCW Honors, 2013)
Matt Birk (UNCW Honors, 2013)
Julianna Schroeger (UNCW Honors, 2013)
Whitney Wilson (UNCW Honors, 2012)