Advisory Committee

Sabrina was born and raised in the California Bay Area and has dedicated her education, career, and personal projects to advancing equitable climate change mitigation and adaptation policy. Based in Santa Cruz for the past decade, she recently earned her Master of Science in Coastal Science and Policy from UC Santa Cruz. She is deeply committed to public service and coastal climate resilience, and enjoys creating art and playing with her three dogs in her free time.

 Will White is an Associate Professor in the Coastal Oregon Marine Experiment Station at Oregon State’s Hatfield Marine Science Center, where his research group uses mathematical modeling and statistical approaches to answer basic and applied questions in a wide range of study systems, from zooplankton to kelp forests to sea turtles. He earned his Ph.D. from UC Santa Barbara in 2007, studying the ecology of coral reef fish populations; after a postdoctoral research position at UC Davis, he was on the faculty of the University of North Carolina Wilmington before coming to Oregon State in 2017. He has coauthored more than 110 peer-review articles and served on a variety of expert panels; his work has influenced marine fisheries and conservation policy, legislation, and litigation in California, Oregon, Florida, North Carolina, and British Columbia.

Dr. Roxanne Beltran is an assistant professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She studies species interactions and global change in the open ocean, through the lens of marine mammal movement, behavior, and demography. Her research leverages the six-decade mark-recapture program of northern elephant seals at Año Nuevo in California along with environmental and biologging data to understand the role of among-individual variation in ecological patterns and evolutionary processes.

Rod Fujita received a PhD in marine ecology from the Marine Biological Laboratory and Boston University in 1985. He has over 40 years of experience in the theory and practice of ocean resource management and conservation, with a focus on bringing science to action.  Rod served as a science advisor to federal and state agencies working to restore critical habitat in California’s river basins. He co-founded the Environmental Defense Fund’s oceans program and served as director of its research and development team, which supported over 100 staff working in 10 geographies around the world including the Pacific Northwest region of the US helping fishing communities and fishery management agencies navigate a variety of challenges. In recent years, Rod has focused on restoring damaged marine ecosystems, generating livelihoods, and mitigating climate change by improving and expanding seaweed cultivation. He has won numerous awards, including a Pew Fellowship in Marine Conservation, the Hatfield Prize for Science in Action, and the Governor’s Award for Environmental and Economic Leadership. He currently heads Ocean Innovations, a private consultancy, and serves as an adjunct Professor at the University of California Santa Cruz. Rod has authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications and two books, Heal the Ocean and Making Shift Happen, winner of the Nautilus Gold Medal for Better Books for a Better World.

Kate Wing is the founder and Executive Director of Intertidal Agency, a nonprofit working to make ocean data more open, reusable, and used. Based in Oakland, California, she has over two decades of experience in ocean conservation and policy at the state, regional, and national levels, and regularly serves as an advisor to ocean businesses and investors.

Dom Kone is a science-to-policy expert in advancing and informing ocean and coastal decision-making and management using sound science. Dom primarily works with scientists, policymakers, and communities to develop and establish processes for identifying actionable strategies to manage and conserve our oceans and coasts. He is currently a Program Officer at the Blue Convergence Fund, a grantmaking organization, where he identifies research funding priorities and implements outreach and engagement strategies to advance climate resilient fisheries.

Clarissa Anderson is a biological oceanographer with expertise in ecological forecasting and remote sensing. Her research has focused on the prediction of harmful algal blooms and toxins in estuarine and coastal ecosystems as well as the fate and transport of harmful toxins to deeper waters and sediments. Clarissa is now at Scripps Institution of Oceanography serving as the Executive Director of the Southern California Coastal Ocean Observing System (SCCOOS) and the Director of the NOAA Cooperative Institute for Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Systems (CIMEAS). She continues to conduct research on phytoplankton ecology in coastal California. She is Chair of the IOC-SCOR GlobalHAB Scientific Steering Committee, Co-Chair of the National HAB Committee, Co-Chair of the National HAB Observing Network Community of Practice, and a member of the UN Decade Programme on Observing Air-Sea Interactions Strategy (OASIS), U.S. CLIVAR Working Group on Coastal Climate Solutions, and the Science Advisory Team for the CA Ocean Protection Council (OPC).

Dr. Matthew Gribble is the Associate Chief for Research in Occupational, Environmental, and Climate Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He directs the UCSF Center for Oceans & Human Health and leads a research program bridging environmental epidemiology, environmental social science, and marine ecotoxicology. He has also co-edited an Oceans and Human Health textbook (ISBN 9780323952279).

Dr. Jan Newton, a biological oceanographer, is a Senior Principal Oceanographer with the Applied Physics Laboratory of the University of Washington and Affiliate Professor with the UW School of Oceanography and UW School of Marine and Environmental Affairs with research on coastal systems. She works to build ocean observing systems assuring connections to society, with expertise linking observations and needs across scales from local to regional to global for optimized science and in doing so, engaging with partners for effective outputs. She is the Executive Director of NANOOS, the Northwest Association of Networked Ocean Observing Systems, part of U.S. IOOS, co-Director of the Washington Ocean Acidification Center, and co-Chair of the Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network, GOA-ON, co-leading GOA-ON’s UN Ocean Decade program, Ocean Acidification Research for Sustainability, OARS.

Becky Smyth provides expertise in building capacity of local and state managers along the west coast in order to plan for and mitigate coastal hazards and risks associated with climate change  For almost 30 years at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, her focus was on how managers and policy makers use science, data and tools to make decisions for the nation’s coastal and ocean resources and communities.  Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, she also works to ensure communities are centered in how to understand and solve the challenges of living and working along the coast. 

Dr. Priya Shukla is an Associate with Strategic Earth Consulting, where she supports relationship-building across agencies, private companies, ENGOs, communities, and Tribes as they relate to coastal and marine resources and policy. She received her PhD in Ecology from UC Davis, where her research explored the effects of climate change on shellfish aquaculture in California. A dedicated science communicator, Priya believes in empowering communities by co-developing science and engagement opportunities that will directly benefit them.