Biography

Rachel was a Postdoctoral Fellow from 2022-2023, jointly affiliated with CRC and the Humphries Lab. Her research at URI focused on building our understanding of the relationships between distant water fleet fishing (DWF) and food and nutrition security. She remains engaged in research on the social and ecological impacts of DWFs for coastal ecosystems and communities around the world.

In her current position at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Rachel conducts interdisciplinary research to develop equitable and effective solutions to pressing issues facing the oceans and all of us who depend on them. In addition to work on DWFs, her current research projects span the topics of seafood sustainability, small-scale fisheries health and resilience, and the evaluation of complex social-ecological outcomes.

Rachel earned her Ph.D. in 2018 from the University of California Santa Cruz with a dissertation on the ecology and human dimensions of California’s nearshore groundfish fishery. Prior to her graduate work, she served as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in Fiji and worked in the coastal zone management program in Saipan, CNMI.