Hear from local scientists about their work relevant to the beloved Cherry Point Aquatic Reserve, and how we can better protect this ecologically, culturally and economically vital place. Topics will include oil spills, microplastics, and eelgrass and kelp restoration.

Presentation information (more details will be added soon):

• Microplastics: Novel Technology Enables Community Science Microplastics Monitoring on Sandy Shorelines of Vancouver Island, BC, Canada Iselle Flores Ruiz (she/her), Laboratory Manager/Analytical Scientist, Ocean Diagnostics (Victoria, BC). How can technology help community scientists monitor microplastic pollution in their local sandy beaches? Join Iselle to learn about new tools that community partners can use to collect microplastic data for their area.
  
• A tool to determine the long-term impacts of oil spills on the marine ecosystem in the Salish Sea: Raisha Lovindeer, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Mesoscale Ocean and Atmospheric Dynamics Research Group, Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences Department, University of British Columbia. Raisha Lovindeer is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of British Columbia. She holds a PhD in Earth System Science from the University of California, Irvine, and an MSc. in Marine Science from Stony Brook University. She has been working on human impacts to coastal waters for the last 15 years, including oil spill management and mitigation in government and industry in the Caribbean. Currently, she is in charge of transitioning the knowledge and expertise of the Salish Sea Atlantis model from development to operation.
• Kelp Restoration and How You Can Get Involved: Jessi Florendo, Puget Sound Restoration Fund. A discussion about local kelp restoration and what community members can do to support kelp health, which provides habitat, sequesters carbon and protects shorelines.
• Stressed-out seagrass: How disease and warming threaten a critical ecosystem: Lillian Aoki, PhD, Research Scientist, Data Science Initiative, University of Oregon. Eelgrass meadows provide essential coastal habitat, in the Salish Sea and around the world. Dr. Aoki will discuss how warming oceans affect this important habitat, and how outbreaks of disease in seagrass may be a warning sign of meadow decline. Dr. Lillian Aoki is a Research Scientist at the Data Science Initiative at University of Oregon. She studies coastal ecosystem dynamics across space and time, working to understand how climate change and other stressors impact ecosystem resilience. A native of Virginia, she studied seagrass restoration in the Chesapeake Bay area before moving to the Pacific Northwest in 2018 to study seagrass disease. Her current work focuses on the benefits of seagrass restoration and conservation in Oregon.

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