Global Shrimp Production
My dissertation focuses on the rise of industrial aquaculture and the impacts that technological development and the adoption of new production practices have on shrimp producers. I carry out this work in Aceh Province, Indonesia and North Carolina, USA to study both small-scale aquaculturists and small-scale capture fisheries. These two methods of production are linked by an increasingly connected global commodity network, particularly through the emergence of new diseases in aquaculture that cause drastic shifts in supply and prices. I'm interested in the co-evolution of disease and aquaculture management, as well as how disease and other environmental factors connect producers across enormous distance. I ground this work in approaches from political ecology, commodity studies, and science and technology studies.
Local Seafood Systems
I work with several colleagues to investigate Community Supported Fisheries (CSFs) and other new efforts to promote local seafood systems in North America. This work focuses on the potential benefits of these approaches, opportunities for growth, their possible limitations, and implications for management and social and environmental sustainability. In addition to my academic research I work as a technical advisor to a CSF and have supported sustainable working waterfront development projects in Eastern North Carolina. To learn more about CSFs and other forms of local seafood production visit the Local Catch network's website. Listen to local seafood production issues expressed by some of those who live them here. My publications related to CSFs can be accessed here and here.
Fisher Adaptation to Climate Change
I co-lead a project funded through the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) that examines climate associated range shifts of commercially targeted species and how fishers and managers respond to these shifts. This work is inherently interdisciplinary and engages with concepts of scale and space from biophysical and social science perspectives. Sub-projects examine the interplay between social and ecological scales and the complex drivers of both human and biophysical shift in fisheries. Our research team consists of PhD students and recent Doctoral graduates from Duke Marine Lab, Rutgers, Princeton and UC Davis, as well as advisors from the Island Institute, and Mid-Atlantic Fisheries Management Council (MAFMC). The project page on SESYNC can be found here. Publications related to this project can be found in Marine Policy and ICES Journal of Marine Science, and our presentation to the MAFMC is available on their website.