Claisse Lab

Graduate student Maggie Dillon presented a poster on her work on fish-habitat relationships on the Bolsa Chica Artificial Reef (funded through grants from CSU COAST SSINP Program and BOEM) at the 2024 (OSM) Ocean Science Meeting in New Orleans LA.

Graduate student Matt Kim presented a poster on his work mapping and quantifying artificial reef habitat characteristics (funded through grants from CSU COAST SSINP Program and BOEM) at the 2024 (OSM) Ocean Science Meeting in New Orleans LA.

(Former and current) graduate students Brenda Calderon and Maggie Dillon completed their PADI SCUBA Instructor Certifications through the CPP BRIC's professional dive training program! If you are a CPP student and want to get our scuba certification, check out the BRIC's SCUBA program and Brenda or Maggie might teach your course!

Graduate student Maggie Dillon successfully completed her thesis project proposal to examine relationships between artificial reef construction material and habitat characteristics and fish assemblages on the Bolsa Chica Artificial Reef using a stereo-video ROV to survey the fishes. This is part of a larger lab project funded through grants from BOEM and the CSU COAST State Science Information Needs Program.

Graduate students Matt Kim and Maggie Dillon completed their PADI Dive Master Certifications through the CPP BRIC's professional dive training program!

Claisse lab members got a tour of the Monterey Bay Aquarium from former undergraduate research student Michael Joyce who is now an aquarist there. It was awesome to hear about his work maintaining the water systems of these huge tanks where large pelagic fishes (e.g., Yellowfin Tuna, Mahi Mahi) are transitioned for periods of months to life in an aquarium before they are put on display. 

Graduate student Daniel Ramirez presented a poster on his thesis research examining the phenology of Garibaldi larval occurrence in relation to annual oceanographic patterns at the (WSN) Western Society of Naturalists annual meeting in Monterey CA.

Graduate students Casey Pua and Matt Kim presented a poster on their work mapping and quantifying artificial reef habitat characteristics (funded through grants from CSU COAST SSINP Program and BOEM) at the (WSN) Western Society of Naturalists annual meeting in Monterey CA.

Graduate student Maggie Dillon presented a poster on her thesis research quantifying fish habitat use patterns on Bolsa Chica Artificial Reef artificial reef funded by a grant from (BOEM) U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management at the (WSN) Western Society of Naturalists annual meeting in Monterey CA.

Our research was featured in an article in The Guardian! The story focuses on the debate around what will happen to the structures of offshore oil platforms nearing the end of their economic (oil/gas extraction) lifespans that are now home to thriving ecosystems of marine life. Our research on fish production and reproductive output for those living associated with the submerged platform structures is discussed.

Graduate student Matt Kim presented a poster on his thesis research (funded through a CSU COAST SSINP Grant) at the CSU COAST annual meeting at the CSU Chancellors Office in Long Beach CA.

Graduate students Matt Kim (Treasurer) and Maggie Dillon (President) were voted to help lead this year's CPP Biology Graduate Student Association (BIO GSA) executive board. They follow in the footsteps of former graduate student James Sturges' reign as 2021-2022 BIO GSA Historian. His legacy will never be forgotten!

Our research was featured in a National Geographic article! The story focuses on Platform Eureka off the coast of Long Beach California, an oil platform that is nearing the end of its lifespan but is home to a thriving ecosystem of marine life. Our research on fish production value of the submerged platform structures is discussed.

Graduate student Casey Pua completed the (MOTC) Motorboat Operator Training Certification course taught by our marine lab the (SCMI) Southern California Marine Institute. The weeklong course includes classroom and pool safety training, and time operating, launching and trailering small research vessels. With CPP's membership in the CSU Ocean Studies Institute, CPP students and faculty can take the boating training course for free (with a faculty sponsor).

Undergraduate student Natalie Shubin completed her PADI Advanced SCUBA certification after doing additional dives at the Northern Channel Islands! She took the course through the CPP BRIC SCUBA Program which offers students initial, advanced and professional certifications at a reduced cost. Additionally, former and current graduate students Brenda Calderon and Maggie Dillon worked as Dive Masters for the course (certifications they also received through the BRIC's program)!

Graduate student Maggie Dillon was awarded and is participating in the highly competitive NSF Research Traineeship Sustainable Oceans: from Policy to Science to Decisions program hosted by UC Davis. This summer they did a field trip to visit marine stakeholders and natural resource managers around northern California, and next year they'll do a basecamp and research symposium.

Graduate student Casey Pua completed the AAUS Scientific Diving Training Program and can now participate in research involving scuba! Run by the CSU's Ocean Studies Institute, the intensive two-week course includes diving theory, physics, physiology, dive planning and emergency accident management, and in-water training that includes numerous dives to practice data-gathering methodologies, and develop diving skills such as navigation, deep, night, and rescue. Students lived at USC's Wrigley Marine Science Center on Catalina during the second week of the course.

Undergraduate student Natalie Shubin completed her PADI Open Water SCUBA certification after doing her ocean dives at the Northern Channel Islands! She took the course through the CPP BRIC SCUBA Program which offers students initial, advanced and professional certifications at a reduced cost.

Graduate student Brenda Calderon graduated! She was mildly excited, and it was well deserved after completing a great thesis and making so my important contributions to our lab, the Bio Dept. grad program, BIO GSA, and the BRIC scuba program over the past few years. Congratulations Brenda!

Graduate student Daniel Ramirez successfully completed his thesis project proposal to examine the influence of oceanography and life history on shifts in the phenology of nearshore larval fishes at King Harbor from 1978-2022. He'll be analyzing a data set that have been collected monthly by the Vantuna Research Group at Occidental College for almost 50 years! Daniel also works at the VRG as a larval taxonomist and recently has taken over the lead of the monthly plankton tows for the project

Undergraduate students Casey Pua & Natalie Shubin graduated! They made such great contributions to our lab over the past year getting a new fish life history project up and running, congratulations to you both! 

Graduate student Brenda Calderon successfully defended her thesis: Spatial and Habitat Variation in Diet Composition and Associated Life History Patterns of Garibaldi (Hypsypops Rubicundus) in the Southern California Bight. Congratulations, Brenda! 

Graduate students Maggie Dillon, Matt Kim, Brenda Calderon, and Daniel Ramirez were awarded CPP Biological Sciences Department Scholarships! Well deserved, congratulations! (And Jeremy won the Biological Sciences Dept. Research Award)

Graduate student Brenda Calderon completed her PADI Dive Master Certification through through the CPP BRIC's professional dive training program!

Undergraduate students Natalie Shubin and Casey Pua presented their poster at the Cal Poly Pomona 16th Annual Science Research Symposium which describes their project examining the potential effects of MPAs on fish age structure. Their work was also funded by CSU COAST Undergraduate Research Awards. Thank you COAST!

Graduate student Daniel Ramirez was awarded the CSU COAST Graduate Student Research Award for his proposal on the effects of oceanography and life history on the phenology of larval fish abundance in southern California. Thank you COAST!

Jeremy gave a presentation and was part of a panel on Bridging science to policy on offshore oil platform decommissioning which was the focus of a luncheon at the California Ocean Day 2023 at the State Capitol in Sacramento hosted by CSU COAST and the California Ocean Science Trust.

Undergraduates Casey Pua and Natalie Shubin each received a CSU COAST Undergraduate Research Award! They'll be working on processing fishes collected in and around the MPAs off of Palos Verdes and conducting literature reviews on the focal species to assess the potential effects of MPA protection on fish age structure. Thank you COAST!

Former graduate student Ben Grime's thesis research was published!!

Grime, B.C, R. Sanders, T. Ford, H. Burdick, J.T. Claisse (2023) Urchin gonad response to kelp forest restoration on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, California. Bulletin of the Southern California Academy of Sciences 122: 1-18

Graduate student Matt Kim successfully completed his thesis project proposal to examine relationships between fish assemblages and habitat characteristics that he will quantify in GIS from sonar data layers on artificial reefs in Santa Monica Bay. This is part of a larger lab project funded through the CSU COAST State Science Information Needs Program.

Graduate student Maggie Dillon won the 2022 Western Society of Naturalists annual meeting Graduate Student Best Poster Award!!! She presented some Blue Catfish research she had done as a research technician at VIMS before starting in our masters program at CPP this fall. She also received a CPP OUR Conference Presentation Award to fund her travel to the conference in Oxnard, CA. Thank you CPP OUR!

Graduate student Matt Kim presented a poster on the early stages of his thesis research (funded through a CSU COAST SSINP Grant) at the 2022 Western Society of Naturalists annual meeting in Oxnard, CA and got a lot of great feedback. He also received a CSU COAST Travel Award and a CPP OUR Conference Presentation Award to fund his travel! Thank you CSU COAST & CPP OUR!

Graduate student Brenda Calderon presented a poster on her thesis research (and work by former students) and got a lot of great feedback at the 2022 Western Society of Naturalists annual meeting in Oxnard, CA. She also received a CSU COAST Travel Award and a CPP OUR Conference Presentation Award to fund her travel! Thank you CSU COAST & CPP OUR!

Graduate student Brenda Calderon is helping to train students as a Dive Master in Cal Poly Pomona BRIC's recreational SCUBA training program! Additionally Graduate Students Matt Kim and Maggie Dillon are getting training to become PADI Dive Masters! The BRIC's SCUBA program is pretty unique among CSU schools, and allows students to complete their initial open water certification at a very reduced cost, which is a critical part of the pathway to our students getting the AAUS Scientific Diver Certification they need to use SCUBA for scientific research. 

Former graduate student Chelsea Munoz Williams' thesis research has been published in Frontiers in Marine Science!!! Former grad student Jacob Eagleton is also an author for his contribution leading the gonad histology to determine the sex of many of the juveniles fish collected for the study. 

Former graduate student James Sturges is starting a Phd Program at Florida International University (FIU) in the Rehage Laboratory for Coastal Fish Ecology & Fisheries. Best of luck James! Can't wait to see the results of your research!

Former undergraduate student Gabby Yang is starting a PhD program in Ecology at UC Davis with her first year funded through the Sustainable Oceans NRT. Best of luck Gabby! Can't wait to see the results of your research!

Former undergraduate student Whitney Jones is starting a Master's Program at CSU Long Beach in The Shark Lab. Best of luck Whitney! Can't wait to see the results of your research!

Graduate student James Sturges successfully defended his thesis: Using Stereo-DOV Surveys to Assess Fish Assemblage Structure & Fine-Scale Species-Specific Habitat Use Patterns on The Palos Verdes Restoration Reef One Year Post-Construction. Congratulations, James! 

Jeremy received a grant from the CSU COAST through its State Science Information Needs Program to assess some of the artificial reefs off of southern California. Graduate students Matt Kim and Maggie Dillon will be working on the grant quantifying aspects of the physical reef structures and compiling historical information about them. And we'll be partnering with the Vantuna Research Group at Occidental College to do biological and sonar surveys of the reefs.

Undergraduate students Daniel Aguilar and Whitney Jones graduated! They made such great contributions to our lab, congratulations to you both! 

Graduate students Brenda Calderon and James Sturges (not pictured as he was off in Florida collecting data for his PhD) were awarded CPP Biological Sciences Department Scholarships! Well deserved, congratulations!

Graduate student Brenda Calderon presented her poster at the 2022 Southern California Academy of Sciences Annual Meeting at CSUF which describes her thesis research on Garibaldi, Hypsypops rubicundus, diet composition and its relationship to their life history patterns which builds off the work of previous graduates students Chelsea Williams and Jacob Eagleton.

Graduate student Matthew Kim was awarded the CSU COAST Graduate Student Research Award for his proposal on using industry ROV footage to analyze fish assemblages associated with subsea oil and gas pipelines in southern California. Thank you COAST!

Multiple Claisse Lab members spent spring break week on Hawaii Island as part of the BIO 4550/L Field Biology - Coral Reef Ecology course. Many hours in the water, with a couple days seeing some terrestrial sites and crouching awkwardly in front of waterfalls and volcanoes.

Undergraduate student Daniel Aguilar completed his PADI Open Water SCUBA certification after doing his ocean dives at Catalina! He took the course through the CPP BRIC SCUBA Program which offers students initial, advanced and professional certifications at a reduced cost.

Graduate student Brenda Calderon presented her poster at the Cal Poly Pomona 15th Annual Science Research Symposium which describes her thesis research on Garibaldi, Hypsypops rubicundus, diet composition and its relationship to their life history patterns which builds off the work of previous graduates students Chelsea Williams and Jacob Eagleton.

Graduate student Brenda Calderon was awarded the CSU COAST Graduate Student Research Award for her proposal investigating geographic and habitat variation in Garibaldi, Hypsypops rubicundus, diet composition and its relationship to variation in life history parameters. Thank you COAST!

Undergraduate student Daniel Aguilar presented his poster on variation in  Garibaldi, Hypsypops rubicundus, gut length at the Cal Poly Pomona 15th Annual Science Research Symposium.

Jeremy was able to participate on a panel at the 2022 Retire Offshore Rigs event. It was a great opportunity to share and discuss all the research on fish using CA's offshore oil platforms as habitat with policy makers, state/federal agency folks, industry reps and other important stakeholders.

Graduate student Brenda Calderon was voted president of next year's CPP Biology Graduate Student Association executive board. However, it does mean the days are numbered for graduate student James Sturges' reign as 2021-2022 BIO GSA Historian. His legacy will never be forgotten!

Assuming James did his job...

Undergraduate lab member Gabby Yang graduated! As the motivating force behind this website and for the countless other contributions she's made to the lab we will be forever grateful. Can't wait to see what she gets up to next!

Graduate student Brenda Calderon successfully completed her thesis proposal presentation! Now looking forward to the discoveries to come!

Jeremy (co-PI) received a grant from the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. He'll be working with Dan Pondella (Vantuna Research Group at Occidental College) and others to investigate the environmental status of artificial structures offshore of California. Funding will also support graduate student Matt Kim to examine the role oil pipelines running along the seafloor are functioning as fish habitats.

Undergraduate student Daniel Aguilar received a CSU COAST Undergraduate Research Award! He'll be analyzing Garibaldi gut length data exploring how allometric relationships vary by sex and life stage, and doing a literature review of how gut length relationships vary with diet type and other environmental factors across fish species. Thank you COAST!

Graduate students Brenda Calderon and Matthew Kim, and undergraduate Whitney Jones completed the AAUS Scientific Diving Training Program and can now participate in research involving scuba! Run by the CSU's Ocean Studies Institute, the intensive two-week course includes diving theory, physics, physiology, dive planning and emergency accident management, and in-water training that includes numerous dives to practice data-gathering methodologies, and develop diving skills such as navigation, deep, night, and rescue. Students live at USC's Wrigley Marine Science Center on Catalina during the second week of the course.

We completed the stereo-video surveys on each of the 18 quarry rock reef modules (about 2 miles of video transects in total) of the Palos Verdes Restoration Reef Project ~1 yr after construction! Graduate student James Sturges is investigating fish habitat use patterns on the quarry rock restoration reef for his masters thesis using this data.

Jeremy and multiple students in the lab participated as a team in the Openscapes Champions Program CSU-COAST Cohort. The program guided us toward more sustainable and reproducible science in a more collaborative, inclusive and kind learning environment. We also created a GitHub Organization to work collaboratively on code, store lab and data protocols and more! Thank you Openscapes and COAST!

Graduate students Brenda Calderon and Matt Kim, and undergraduate Whitney Jones completed the (MOTC) Motorboat Operator Training Certification course taught by our marine lab the (SCMI) Southern California Marine Institute. The weeklong course includes classroom and pool safety training, and time operating, launching and trailering small research vessels. With CPP's membership in the CSU Ocean Studies Institute, CPP students and faculty can take the boating training course for free (with a faculty sponsor).

We are back at it diving on the Palos Verdes Reef (PVR) restoration project that was completed last year! We are using a diver operated stereo-video system to collect data for graduate student James Sturges' master's thesis project and start a long-term monitoring data set of fine scale fish habitat use patterns on the restored reef. 

Graduate student Ben Grime successfully defended his thesis: Urchin Gonad Response to Kelp Forest Restoration on The Palos Verdes Peninsula, CA Congratulations, Ben!

Undergraduate student Gabby Yang was awarded a CSU COAST Summer Internship! Gabby will be working with the California Fish and Wildlife Department Marine Region on their Northern California Marine Invertebrate Fisheries Management Internship at the UC Davis Bodega Bay Marine Laboratory participating in research on marine heatwaves, kelp forest ecosystems, invertebrate fishery species, and implementation of policy. Thank you COAST for supporting this internship!

Undergraduate student Whitney Jones was awarded a CSU COAST Summer Internship! Whitney will be working with the California Fish and Wildlife Department Marine Region on their Emerging Box Crab Fishery Internship doing data management as well as studying the population and life history of the brown box crab for a potential fishery. Thank you COAST for supporting this internship!

Graduate student James Sturges won an honorable mention for his poster at the Southern California Academy of Sciences (SCAS) annual meeting featuring the experimental design for his thesis research on fish-habitat associations on the Palos Verdes Restoration Reef. 

Graduate student Austin Pyles successfully defended his thesis: Nesting and Habitat Use Patterns of Garibaldi (Hypsypops rubicundus) on The Los Angeles Harbor Breakwater Using Diver Operated Stereo-Video Cameras. Congratulations, Austin! 

Graduate student Jacob Eagleton successfully defended his thesis: Variation in Garibaldi Diet Composition on Southern California Natural and Artificial Rocky Reefs.

Congratulations, Jacob! 

Jeremy and graduate student Chelsea Williams with the Vantuna Research Group (VRG) published a paper in Marine Ecology Progress Series that provides strong evidence that deliberate efforts to remove urchins can be a key strategy in bringing back giant kelp forests and the high-value commercial marine species. Read the CPP Polycentric article all about it here!

Graduate student Chelsea Munoz Williams successfully defended her thesis:  Spatial and Habitat Variation in Life History of Garibaldi, Hypsypops rubicundus, Including Validation of Annual Growth Increments. Congratulations, Chelsea! 

Featuring our collaborators at the Vantuna Research Group, documentary filmmaker, Shaun Wolfe created a short film: Rebirth of a Reef: Palos Verdes Reef Restoration Project.

Undergraduate student Whitney Jones was awarded the CSU Edison STEM-NET Student Research Fellowship Award on her project focused on using R to analyze data to examine body size-specific habitat use patterns of fish on oil platforms. She will be presenting her project May 2021! 

Graduate student James Sturges completed his thesis proposal presentation. On to data collection!

Graduate student Brenda Calderon was featured in an article in the Poly Post about the Cal Poly Pomona BRIC's recreational SCUBA training program! The BRIC's SCUBA program is pretty unique among CSU schools, and allows students to complete their initial open water certification at a very reduced cost, which is a critical part of the pathway to our students getting the AAUS Scientific Diver Certification they need to use SCUBA for scientific research. 

Undergraduate students Whitney Jones (Size-specific fish habitat use patterns on offshore oil platforms) and Michael Joyce (Hypsypops rubicundus egg and larval size variation) each received a CSU COAST Undergraduate Research Award! Thank you COAST!

Did our first scouting dives on the recently completed Palos Verdes Reef restoration project to plan the stereo-video sampling design for graduate student James Sturges' thesis project. The video data collected can also be used as a baseline for establishing how fine scale habitat use patterns of fish on the new habitat change over time. Lots of fish already taking up residence on the new high relief habitat!

Construction resumes on the Palos Verdes Reef restoration project! After working for the past decade on the background research, design and implementation of this project with the Vantuna Research Group and the NOAA Montrose Settlements Restoration Program it is exciting to see it being built. Can't wait to start studying how fish use the restored habitat once it is completed!

Undergraduate student Gabby Yang was awarded a CPP Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) research fellowship!

"It worked!" Graduate student Chelsea Williams successfully validated that the rings on Garibaldi otoliths (inner ear bones) are produced annually. She used a method where wild fish are captured, injected with tetracycline, and then re-captured 14 months later. The tetracycline, which is rapidly incorporated into bone tissue, glows yellow under fluorescent light on the sectioned otolith showing that one ring was formed outside of that mark during the 14 months after it was initially tagged.

Jeremy and graduate student Chelsea Williams were featured on the CSU Website in a story about the research CSU faculty and students have been doing on the fishes living associated with the oil platforms off the coast of California and how this is contributing to the state and federal decision making process about the fate of these structures once they reach the end of their economic lifespans.

Two graduate students from our lab took home awards at the annual CPP Biological Sciences awards banquet - Austin Pyles received the Larry McKane Teaching Assistant Scholarship and James Sturges received the Rachel Carson Environmental Science Scholarship!

Graduate student James Sturges received the CSU COAST Graduate Student Research Award for his proposal to investigate fish habitat use patterns using stereo-video camera systems on the Palos Verdes Restoration Reef! Thank you COAST!

Graduate student Austin Pyles' Southern California Academy of Sciences (SCAS) student research grant proposal was funded to support his field research on Garibaldi habitat use and reproductive biology! As part of the funding Austin will present his research results at the next SCAS Annual Meeting.

Jeremy's research on fish living on offshore oil platforms was featured in a Seafood Source Article titled: California’s offshore oil platforms, now marine hotspots, face removal

Undergraduate, Matt Kim, was awarded a CSU COAST Summer Internship​​​with the California Department of Fish and ​Wildlife!!! He will be working with the CDFW San Diego office on their Marine Invertebrate Fisheries Management​​ program. Thank you CSU COAST for supporting these internships!

Jeremy gave a presentation at an Offshore Oil Platform Decommissioning Forum hosted by the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, CA. Link to PDF of workshop report. Undergraduates Matt Kim and Gabby Yang, along with graduate students Austin Pyles and Chelsea Williams attended, and we all learned so much about the legal, technical, and political challenges for CA offshore oil platform decommissioning. Thanks CSU COAST for covering the students' reg fees!

Undergraduate student Gabby Yang was awarded the CSU COAST Undergraduate Research Funding Award for her project analyzing stereo-video data collected in Hawaii to look at abundance patterns of Yellow Tang, Zebrasoma flavescens, inside and outside of Marine Protected Areas. Thank you COAST!

(soon to be) Graduate student, Brenda Calderon, and undergraduate student, Gabby Yang, completed their PADI Advanced Open Water Certification Course through the BRIC. The course included a weekend dive trip in Dana Point. Both did their fish ID and underwater photography specialty certifications. This course was a great next step after the PADI Open Water Certification Course.

Jeremy and graduate students Austin Pyles, Jacob Eagleton and (CPP Snail Lab member) Kendall Feliciano had a great time at the 2019 Western Society of Naturalists annual meeting in Ensenada, Mexico. Austin and Jacob presented posters on their thesis research got a lot of great feedback. They also received CSU COAST Travel Awards to fund their travel! Thanks COAST!

Undergraduate students Matthew Kim and Whitney Jones completed their PADI Open Water Certification Course through the BRIC! The course included a weekend dive trip and graduate student Jacob Eagleton in our lab was their instructor!

Undergraduate student Gabby Yang was accepted into the Ernest Prete Jr. Fellowship Program run by the Center for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching (CEMaST). She will be working with an elementary school teacher learning about lesson planning and will eventually teach a science lesson to her assigned PUSD class!

Undergraduate student Gabby Yang completed the (MOTC) Motorboat Operator Training Course taught by the (SCMI) Southern California Marine Institute. The weeklong course includes classroom and pool safety training, and time operating, launching and trailering small research vessels. With CPP's membership in the CSU Ocean Studies Institute, CPP students and faculty can take the boating training course for free (with a faculty sponsor).

Graduate student Jacob Eagleton completed his PADI SCUBA Instructor Certification at Buddy Dive in Bonaire! The cost of the course was subsidized by the BRIC and he'll now work to help teach courses in their scuba program.

Undergraduate student Gabby Yang was awarded the Scholars Program in Research, Education, and Science (SPIRES) research fellowship. She is now a National Science Foundation Scholar!

Undergraduates Brenda Calderon, John DiGildo, and Gabby Yang completed their PADI Open Water Recreational SCUBA Certification through the BRIC. The course included an overnight boat trip to Catalina Island to do the ocean dives and we were able to spot a baby octopus!

Undergraduate student Brenda Calderon created a poster on histological gonad preparation and female reproductive patterns of the Garibaldi, Hypsypops rubicundus, for the Cal Poly Pomona 14th Annual Science Research Symposium. While she was sick that day and not able to present it, the other students in the lab filled in and did a great job! Lots of compliments on Brenda's poster design. 

Jeremy was on a podcast! Episode 338 entitled "Crude Habitat" of 99% Invisible discusses the rigs-to-reefs controversy surrounding offshore oil drilling in California and what to do with the underwater steel support structures of the platforms once they cease pumping oil. 

Jeremy joined the Board of Directors of the Marine Conservation Research Institute (MCRI) at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. MCRI is a boundary organization creating interactions between the scientific community, policymakers and the public on matters related to ocean and environmental issues.

(recent graduate) Undergraduate Stephanie Franck was awarded and is thoroughly enjoying her position in the San Diego Zoo/San Diego Zoo Safari Park - Exotic Animal Nutrition Summer Fellow Program which involves learning how to care for baby wallabies!

Jeremy and graduate students Chelsea Williams, Austin Pyles, Jacob Eagleton, and (CPP Coastal Ecology Lab member) Claire Arre completed the (MOTC) Motorboat Operator Training Course taught by the (SCMI) Southern California Marine Institute. The weeklong course includes classroom and pool safety training, and time operating, launching and trailering small research vessels. With CPP's membership in the CSU Ocean Studies Institute​, CPP students and faculty can take the course for free (with an OSI faculty sponsor).

Jeremy participated in a legislative briefing at the California State Legislature in Sacramento on Artificial Reefs: The State of the Science in California. The briefing was organized by CSU COAST program and Jeremy gave a presentation on the Palos Verdes Reef Restoration Project and answered questions from legislative staffers and state government agencies.

Graduate student Ben Grime received an CPP OUR Conference Presentation Award to present his thesis research at the joint American Malacological Society (AMS)/Western Society of Malacologists (WSM) Annual Meeting in Honolulu Hawaii this summer! Thanks OUR!

Graduate student Chelsea Williams received a Best Student Poster Honorable Mention for her poster “Spatial variation in life-history characteristics of a non-fished pomacentrid, Hypsypops rubicundus, in the Southern California Bight” and the 2018 Southern California Academy of Sciences Annual Meeting.

Graduate student Ben Grime was profiled on the CSU website featuring our ARI funded abalone aquaculture and population restoration research.

Graduate student Ben Grime was awarded the CSU COAST Graduate Student Research Award for his proposal investigating the influence of temperature on spawning and larval survival of the endangered green abalone. Thank you COAST!

Graduate student Chelsea Williams received an Edward C. Raney Award from the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists to support her thesis project on Garibaldi life history.  

(recent graduate) Undergraduate Jacob Eagleton is doing an internship at

Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama getting great fisheries research experience getting to assist with collecting fish via longline, gillnet, seine net, and trawling, while also participating in fish tagging, processing, and life history techniques.

Graduate student Chelsea Williams received a Southern California Academy of Sciences Student Research Grant to support her thesis project on Garibaldi life history

Undergraduate student Stephanie Frank was awarded the CSU COAST Undergraduate Research Funding Award for her project developing histological methods to investigate reproductive biology of Garibaldi. Thank you COAST!

Graduate student, Chelsea Williams received a CSU COAST Travel Award to present her research at the (WSN) Western Society of Naturalists Annual Meeting in Monterey California. Thank you COAST!

Graduate student Ben Grime was featured in a Long Beach Daily Breeze Article about efforts to restore abalone populations along the southern California coastline.

Our CSU (ARI) Agricultural Research Institute proposal was funded! We will be developing methods to spawn green abalone in the lab and providing research training opportunities to a graduate and an undergraduate student in applied aquaculture and wild population restoration.

Our USC Sea Grant research proposal “What Factors Explain the High Rates of Fish Production Associated with Oil Platforms off the Coast of California?” was funded!