Anupa Asokan is the Founder and Executive Director of Fish On, a new fishing interest organization advocating for meaningful ocean conservation policy on behalf of recreational and subsistence fishing communities in the U.S.
She was a student of the Blue MBA program at URI, earning both a Master of Oceanography (MO) from GSO and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the College of Business in 2012. “The MO program allowed me to deepen my skills and expertise in marine science, while the MBA program helped me learn how to translate dense information and hone in on the best ways messages can inspire a general audience,” she shares.
Her URI education helped shape a well-rounded view of how to work with fishing communities, from addressing their concerns to advocating for long-term solutions on their behalf. In addition to studying global ocean processes and dynamics at GSO, she was able to take policy courses as electives through URI’s Marine Affairs department, including a course on Marine Protected Areas that directly applies to the work she does now. She also credits the MBA program as a “helpful basis for running and growing an organization” like Fish On.
Anupa recently published a peer-reviewed paper outlining inequities in U.S. ocean management and how Marine Protected Areas can be a tool to advance environmental justice, which you can read in Frontiers: Marine Protected Areas as a Tool for Environmental Justice.