"I have always loved nature and being able to lead research into sustainable approaches to marine ecosystem management and to also understand the link between human well-being and the ocean is immensely satisfying to me. "
Stefanie is a senior marine ecosystem services scientist.
Her research focusses on linking marine ecology to societal needs through the concept of ecosystem services. These can be defined as the benefits human populations derive, directly or indirectly, from ecosystems, their processes and functions. This approach is useful because it can provide evidence for sustainable management approaches and allows the consideration of more than one aspect of marine science and management to be considered (for example taking into account climate regulation services of seagrass beds and fisheries management).
A key study site for her is Plymouth Sound which is an ideal testbed to assess the natural environment and how this is influenced by and influences the communities living near it. She leads the Marine Social and Natural Capital Laboratory, a new PML initiative that seeks to link old, current and newly collected marine ecological data to the ecosystem services framework and ultimately to data collected by social scientists.
She is also involved in several projects that assess a range of different indicators (for example from remote sensing, biodiversity initiatives, policy, economic and social indicators to ecosystem service frameworks to improve our understanding of the quantity and quality of ecosystem services delivered. For example, she leads the natural sciences work package of the SeaTheValue project, which aims to better understand how biodiversity contributes to a selection of ecosystem services, with a particular focus on bioremediation of nutrients and climate regulation.
She has worked in the UK, Ireland, Italy, Southeast Asia and Mexico.