Working with STENAPA (national park) officials and the diving industry (Golden Rock Dive Center) to assess disease and bleaching impacts and make conservation, restoration, and training recommendations.

Assisting both national park and NGO officials (Saba Conservation Foundation) to assess the extent of recent coral disease and bleaching impacts.

Assisting The SCUBA Shop with conducting coral reef surveys and determining whether coral reef restoration is prudent and feasible.

Comparing Bayesian optimization vs. machine learning models of coral disease and bleaching susceptibility at select reefs of Vieques.

Check-in on corals of the lower Florida Keys (near Key West) to assess recovery from disease.

Will be attending my second in-person Discovery Summit to share new findings on the use of “big data” analytics to optimize coral reef conservation and restoration. Looking forward to getting ideas from experts and visionaries in data science and machine-learning.

Spent most of June in France for work so decided to chip away at North Africa while I’m over on this side of the world. By the way, this beautiful photo of camels traversing the sand is NOT my own and was taken off of Google image search.

The world’s most visited country at the busiest time of year….Still, it’s going to be great!

Why not? A friendly North African country known for epic desert scenery (featured in the original Star Wars films)

Attended the 3rd United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC) in Nice, France for a combination of science and fundraising activities.

Will conduct coral reef surveys and discuss potential coral reef interventions with local scientists at the University of Mauritius and Odysseso.

Meeting with Dr. John Burt to pass on ICRS treasurer duties.

An adventure in the far northern reaches of Saudi Arabia

Excited to be attending my first Reef Futures conference, where I will be both presenting my own research and running a CORDAP workshop on bridging the scientist-practitioner gap.

Excited to be attending my first International Marine Conservation Congress to discuss capacity development for coral conservation and restoration

My first ICRI meeting, just down the road in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. I’ll be representing CORDAP.

Back to little Bahrain to see how these mega-high-temperature reefs are doing.

CORDAP staff with convene with our lovely scientific advisory committee (SAC) for three days to discuss this year’s proposals. On the fourth day, we will have a fundraising event.

Fun trip to Turkey en route to London for the CORDAP annual scientific advisory committee meeting.

Never thought I’d ever find myself WANTING to go to Riyadh, but I’ve always managed to have a good time there despite its historically conservative nature.

Spent a few days in the high-mountain area of Saudi Arabia, the region of the kingdom most don’t even know exists. Mean elevation is around 2,400 m, reaching nearly 3,000 m in certain areas.

Best place for diving in Saudi??

https://oceandecade.org/events/2024-ocean-decade-conference/

CORDAP’s inaugural capacity development workshop focused on growing the capacity of the developing world to confront the climate crisis’ impact on coral reefs.

Exploring the mountains of Saudi Arabia (~1,500 m)