Program: M.A.M.A., graduated 2015
Current Position: Fisheries Specialist, Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life, New England Aquarium

Biography: After graduating from Marine Affairs, Lena worked as a marine ecologist and scientific diver for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the southeast. At the EPA, Lena focused on regulating large-scale infrastructure projects and monitoring offshore ecosystem health, including coral reef condition, water quality, and sediment contamination. Inspired by the time she spent as a volunteer diver at the Georgia Aquarium, Lena joined the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium as a Fisheries Specialist in 2019. In her current position, Lena works to protect the world’s ocean resources by raising public awareness and working with the seafood industry, governments, and other NGOs to advance sustainable practices within wild capture fisheries and aquaculture operations. Current focuses include: bycatch reduction in wild capture fisheries, improving practices in wild-harvest seaweed operations, and working with the bluetech sector to develop innovative solutions to critical issues facing the ocean.

How has your participation in the Marine Affairs Program helped to influence or shape your career? This is said all the time – but once you start looking around, you start to see how many MAF graduates are working in the ocean science/policy sphere (we are EVERYWHERE). Having an instant, massive, professional network and connection with people is incredible.

What was the most memorable–or the most influential–course taken as a Marine Affairs student?
Shameless plug for the world’s best thesis advisor, Tracey Dalton 🙂