Dig Deeper

Alexandra Cousteau has been advocating for the oceans since age eight, when she joined her grandfather’s petition to create an Antarctic nature reserve. A filmmaker, public speaker and advisor to governments and non-profits, she has conducted deep-sea surveys, campaigned for the expansion of marine protection areas, rescued dolphins and manatees, and investigated the impact of oil spills and agricultural run-off on coastal ecosystems. As co-founder and president of Oceans 2050, she uses her gift for storytelling and her background in political science to align interests and bring people together around the common good of abundant oceans. 

Alexandra studied international relations at Georgetown University and received an honorary doctorate of Humane Letters from her alma mater in 2016. Her advocacy for the oceans has been recognized by, among many others, the National Geographic Society, which named her an Emerging Explorer; the World Economic Forum, which named her a Young Global Leader; and the University of California Irvine, which presented her with its Human Security Award. Alexandra serves as a member of the advisory boards of SeaLegacy and Oceanswise and as a senior adviser to Oceana. 

Learn more about Alexandra, here. 

Co-Founder of Nautical Farms, Morgan-Lea Fogg set out to change the world and disrupt food systems by building a modern farm that promotes sea greens and creates sustainable food & bath goods that are just as healthy for consumers as they are for the planet. With a background in community building at Summit- a thought leadership event series, Morgan-Lea also is focused on building sustainable ocean farming networks and has her own kelp farm off the coast of Maine. 

As the lead specialist for Seaweed and Shellfish Farming on the WWF-US Aquaculture team, Bailey supports the seaweed industry in reducing barriers to growth and advancement for climate gains. Her current region of focus is the Eastern Pacific to the North Atlantic. She oversees grants to community organizations and research institutes focused on projects ranging from the ecosystem services of seaweed and shellfish farming to installing demonstration farms in new communities. She develops workshops aimed at driving new markets for seaweed, including as a livestock feed and alternative packaging material, bringing together stakeholders across the respective value chains. 

Bailey brings 10 years of marine science, education, and aquaculture experience. Prior to WWF, Bailey ran a commercial kelp nursery and a research-scale scallop farm in Maine. She has worked on seaweed farming projects in coastal communities in Madagascar and Belize as part of her graduate studies. Her research centered on a women’s association developing new seaweed-based products. She holds a BA in Earth and Oceanographic Science from Bowdoin College and a Professional Science Master’s in Ocean Food Systems from the University of New England. 

Nichole Price is a benthic marine ecologist with interest in how global change phenomena, like ocean acidification and warming, can alter bottom-dwelling species interactions, community dynamics, and ecosystem function in shallow coastal regimes. Her work focuses primarily on the eco-physiology of seaweeds and calcifying invertebrates and their current and future role in dissolved inorganic carbon and nutrient cycling. Nichole utilizes state-of-the-art analytical tools including prototype autonomous oceanographic instrument packages in field campaigns, develops custom experimental aquaria in the lab, and applies emerging technological approaches (like environmental DNA) to tackle fundamental ecological research questions about population dynamics, biological feedbacks, and ecosystem services. Nichole also applies her expertise to explore mitigation strategies for coastal acidification (the ‘Halo’ effect) and climate change (e.g., blue carbon and uses of farmed seaweeds). She has focused on these topics primarily on tropical coral reefs and temperate systems and extrapolates her results from each biome to regional and global scales using statistical modelling. 

Thew spends a lot of time thinking about kelp. From the incredible biodiversity of wild kelp beds to its phenomenal growth rates, kelp occupies a lot of his head-space. His studies and research have taken him from the giant kelp forests of California into the Arctic and throughout the North Atlantic. He is passionate about sustainable aquaculture and believes deeply in the importance of diversifying Maine’s working waterfronts. Among other adventures, prior to Atlantic Sea Farms, Thew spent 2 years at the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in East Boothbay, Maine, working as a postdoctoral fellow studying Maine’s kelp forest communities and how they have changed over the past three decades.  He received his PhD at Université Laval (Québec , Canada) studying the ecological tipping points of sea urchins and kelp beds in the Northern Atlantic and his Masters from Moss Landing Marine Laboratories where he examined how two of the fastest growing kelps on the planet competed with each other.  He also spent six seasons serving on a Smithsonian Institution’s research vessel while part of the Marine Ecosystems Lab under Dr Walter Adey.  There he surveyed the underwater coastline from temperate Maine to the sub-arctic, collecting “climate archives” – long-lived coralline algae which can be used to infer temperature and salinity of our oceans going back several hundred years. Thew and his wife and daughter live in Freeport.