Explore with Shannon
From California's coastline to the Coral Triangle.
I go where the questions are. Some days that means fieldwork with small-scale fishing communities in Indonesia's Coral Triangle, trying to understand how tourism, marine protected areas, and conservation policy actually land on the people living with them. Other days it means California, and a simpler, harder question: who actually has access to our coastline, and who's been left out of deciding that.
What I'm working on now
Coastal Access
A statewide survey of who has access to California's coastline and who doesn't, done with a multidisciplinary team in partnership with the California Marine Sanctuary Foundation. Funded by the California Ocean Protection Council.
The Aquarium Trade
Long before it reaches a living room fish tank, that fish supported a household in Indonesia. I've spent years tracing how the ornamental fish trade, including the yellow coral goby fishery in Banggai Laut, shapes coastal livelihoods there.
Current Grant
Benefits and Barriers: Understanding Social Dimensions of Ocean Access and Marine Protected Areas Across California's Coastal Counties.
California Ocean Protection Council, $750,000 (subaward $28,531). Principal Investigator: Dr. Jennifer Selgrath. June 2025.
Field Sites
Previous projects and research
Mangrove Restoration
Some of my earliest fieldwork, understanding how the village of Silonay in the Verde Island Passage experienced a mangrove restoration and alternative livelihood program built around it.
Fisheries & Marine Protected Areas
Sea Turtle Conservation
A close look at what a good relationship between people and sea turtles actually requires, and how Indonesian and international conservation law shape, and sometimes strain, that relationship.
National Geographic
I've been a National Geographic Explorer since 2010, and a lot of the fieldwork above exists because of it.
Young Explorer, Early Career, and Collaboration grants from National Geographic funded stretches of the Indonesia research, and in 2017 National Geographic named me Adventurer of the Year for it. The documentary and public-facing side of that relationship lives on Discover, this is where the research it made possible sits.
Selected works
A working list, not the whole record. The complete publication history, with teaching and service, is in my CV.
Journal Articles
- Catching Dory: selling aquarium fish supports coastal livelihoods in Indonesia. npj Ocean Sustainability, 2024. Read it
- How adaptive capacity shapes the Adapt, React, Cope response to climate impacts: insights from small-scale fisheries. Climatic Change, 2021. Read it
- Communities behind the lens: A review and critical analysis of Visual Participatory Methods in biodiversity conservation. Biological Conservation, 2021.
- Indigenous food sovereignty is constrained by "time imperialism." Geoforum, 2022.
- Yellow coral goby (Gobiodon okinawae) trade in Banggai Laut District, Indonesia. AACL Bioflux, 2021. Journal home
- Reconstructing overfishing: Moving beyond Malthus for effective and equitable solutions. Fish and Fisheries, 2017.
Book Chapters
- Good Human–Turtle Relationships in Indonesia. In Laws of the Sea: Interdisciplinary Currents, Routledge, 2023. Read it
- The impact of environmental change on small-scale fishing communities. In Predicting Future Oceans, Elsevier, 2020. Read it
- The Married Life (as a Marine Tourism Researcher). In Femininities in the Field, 2023.
Public Scholarship
- The Argo Evolution: Floating robots are changing our understanding of the ocean's role in climate. Anthroposphere, 2019.
I'm an Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at California State University San Marcos and a National Geographic Explorer. My research examines coastal access, small-scale fisheries, and the communities most connected to the sea.
I bring that work into the classroom and into public storytelling