Steve Saul, PhD
2013 Research Fellow, Reef Sampling
Bio
Steve’s love for the ocean began in his youth from spending numerous summers with his family boating on the bay and at the beach in Long Island, New York. He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Richmond in environmental science and music. During this time, he participated in various internships with the Natural Resource Defense Council, Carl Safina’s Living Ocean’s Society (now Blue Ocean Institute), and the Reef Environmental Education Foundation. After his bachelors, he completed his master’s degree in marine policy and his Ph.D. in marine biology and fisheries at the University of Miami. His research has focused on developing agent-based models to study the impact of fisher behavior and decision making on the spatial distribution of fishing effort in multispecies coral reef fisheries. For the past two and a half years, he worked with the National Marine Fisheries Service where he conducted stock assessments on commercially important reef fish in the Gulf of Mexico and provided management advice to regional management bodies. His current research interests are to better understand the linkages between the structure and spatial distribution of coral reefs, their fish populations, and the fishing communities they support in small island developing nations. Steve plans to use the data collected during the Global Reef Expedition to develop agent-based models that look at how coral reef dependent fisheries can most appropriately be managed to meet subsistence needs while protecting biodiversity in small island developing states.
