Sarah Lester, Project Scientist, Marine Science Institute
Sustainable Fisheries Group, Principal Investigator

Sarah received her BS from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her PhD in marine ecology from UC Santa Barbara. For her dissertation research, she studied the role of dispersal ability in determining geographic range size for marine taxa and large-scale patterns of reproductive output in intertidal invertebrates. Following her PhD, she was the Project Manger for the California Current Ecosystem-Based Management (CCEBM) initiative, a collaborative effort to synthesize, advance, and communicate the natural and social science needed more comprehensive ecosystem-based management along the U.S. west coast. For the last two years, Sarah has been a researcher and the Project Manager of Ocean Analytics, the research arm and bioeconomic modeling team of the Sustainable Fisheries Group (SFG) at UCSB. She also helps SFG with science communications and works with on-the-ground partners to connect science and research to the implementation of conservation and sustainable fisheries projects. Her recent research has focused on the ecological effects of marine protected areas, applying tradeoff analysis to marine resource management and spatial planning, sustainable fisheries management, and ecosystem-based management.