A number of new students and researchers have joined the OceanCanada partnership over the last 4 months. Over the next year we endeavour to profile this outstanding community of High Quality Personnel (HQP) and the research contributions they are making to our partnership. This month, we are profiling 4 new additions to the Atlantic working group.
Irene Brueckner-Irwin
Irene Brueckner-Irwin is a Masters student in the School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability at the University of Waterloo. Working under Dr. Derek Armitage, Irene is critically examining the interplay between coastal community wellbeing and marine protected areas (MPA’s) in Atlantic Canada. Specifically, Irene’s research aims to understand the relationship between MPAs and trade-offs in social-ecological wellbeing, using the Bay of Fundy as a case study. Irene will compare the linkages between these concepts in two locations: one with an existing MPA, and a location of interest for the siting of a future MPA.
Evan Andrews
Evan Andrews is a PhD student at the School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability at the University of Waterloo. Working under the supervision of Dr. Derek Armitage, Evan’s research is concerned with how values and beliefs influence perceptions of environmental change held by scientists, managers and local fishers working in marine systems in the Atlantic Ocean. Evan is building a transdisciplinary approach to better account for the human dimensions of marine systems in Canadian environmental governance. His hope is to bring diverse local actors together to develop and evaluate alternatives for a shared vision of resilient coastal fisheries.
Nicole Stamnes
Nicole is a Masters student at the School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability at the University of Waterloo. Her research links environmental monitoring programs to governance through policy risk assessment for estuaries within the Northumberland Strait. The ISO 31010 Bowtie Analysis will be used to complete a risk assessment to evaluate controls for eutrophication caused by cumulative pressures from land-based activities. The European Marine Strategic Framework Directive will also be used to assess effectiveness of Canadian management controls. We seek to demonstrate how this methodology can be implemented to connect monitoring programs with decision making as a communication tool.
Graham Epstein
Graham Epstein is a postdoctoral researcher with the Environmental Change and Governance Group. He completed his PhD at Indiana University in the fall of 2015 and broadly explores a wide range of research questions at the intersection of people, the environment and policy. He is currently working to develop research on the attitudes, perceptions and interests of Shrimp fishers in Newfoundland for the OceanCanada project.