Impact Strategy Development
While working as the Program Director at PangeaSeed, one of my biggest accomplishments was developing a new organizational strategy, vision, and mission to maximize the nonprofit’s impact. In collaboration with the co-founders, I organized strategy workshops employing design thinking frameworks to develop a measurable approach to increasing ocean literacy and empathy by bridging art and ocean science in communities. I synthesized brainstorming sessions into the copy used on PangeaSeed’s website and in strategic vision and pitch decks, effectively communicating our work to funders, partners, and followers.
Sea Walls: Artists for Oceans South Africa
In December of 2023, the PangeaSeed team and 16 artists from South Africa, the USA, Spain, and Germany came together to produce murals across Cape Town over 10 days. In addition to leaving a legacy of 18 large-scale, ocean conservation murals, we held youth workshops at a local school, a public panel discussion and film screening on the value of art for ocean conservation, and a community beach clean-up event to engage Cape Townians in our work.
Group Art Exhibit
1 island, 3 ecosystems, 100 miles from LA, was a multimedia group exhibition presented by SUPERCOLLIDER at Project Space 643 in the winter of 2023. This exhibition shared perspectives of Santa Rosa Island through the lens of ten artists who attended SUPERCOLLIDER’s annual Field Study Program at CSUCI’s Santa Rosa Island Research Station in June 2023.
Podcast Interview on Ocean Conservation and Creativity
I spoke with host and comedian Dave Huntsbuger omn his podcast Space Cave about my unconventional career path, how I landed a job at the intersection of art and ocean science, the value of art as a conservation tool, and lots more. Check out the interview here!
Marine Mammal Rehabilitation Research
In 2020 I assisted The Marine Mammal Center (TMMC) in a multi-year study on optimal stabilization care for pinniped rehabilitation. By analyzing five years of data on Northern Elephant Seal and California Sea Lion rescues, rehabilitation, and survival rates, this study informed the decision-making protocol for the length of stabilization care provided by TMMC satellite facilities in San Lius Obispo and Monterey Bay.
Under Water Art Installations as Artificial Reefs
In 2019 I volunteered with the British Virgin Island based non-profit Beyond the Reef to study fish diversity and abundance on artificial reef sites. Beyond the Reef remediated, retrofitted, and installed three small aircrafts and one barge as art reefs in two separate locations in the BVIs. We asked: can underwater art installations enhance marine biodiversity by acting as artificial reefs? Assessment of the impacts of art reefs informed best practices for future installations. Impacts were found to be significantly beneficial to fish biodiversity and abundance encouraging the use of art reefs as a conservation tool applied at a wider scale.
Art(ificial) Reefs
In 2019 I was invited to speak at Northeastern University’s “Climate Change/Crisis/Creativity Conference” on the subject of Art as artificial reefs from my perspective as both an artist and a scientist. This presentation hypothesized that art can both communicate and mitigate climate change. Specifically, I discussed how art reefs, when studied holistically, have the potential to build resilience ecologically, educationally, and culturally in a local context.
United Nations COP24 in Katowice
In the winter of 2018, I was invited to attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP24 in Katowice, Poland, as an observer representing Northeastern University. I supervised a group of student delagates and managed travel and accommodation logistics.
Publication in “World Development”
Laura Kuhl, Kyla Van Maanen, Steven Scyphers. “An Analysis of UNFCCC-Financed Coastal Adaptation Projects: Assessing Patterns of Project Design and Contributions of Adaptive Capacity .” World Development, 21 Nov. 2019.