Coastal Socio-Environmental Systems

As part of Dr. Sobocinski's post-doctoral research at OSU, she co-organized a workshop on transdisciplinary approaches in marine resource sustainability. This workshop was focused on ecological, social, and economic impacts of catch share management strategies, with case studies from West Coast and Alaska fisheries.

This type of interdisciplinary research is critical for tackling large, complex environmental problems.

In organizing this workshop, Kathryn interacted with industry representatives, agency personnel, and university scientists—all stakeholders in fisheries conservation and management—to develop a well-rounded program for advanced graduate students from the US and abroad. Collectively, the workshop organizers, faculty, and students continued to work on the case studies we developed, with several publications emerging from the course.

Stemming from this workshop, Kathryn worked with Dr. Marty Anderies at the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University to develop fisheries case studies for the Social-Ecological Systems Library.

Expanding on this topic further, she was an Immersion Fellow at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) in Annapolis, MD. This year-long workshop was aimed at cross-training post-doctoral fellows to afford better preparedness when engaging in environmental science and education.

The fellowship culminated with a workshop on the science of environmental change, which was a highlight and very relevant to our research in coastal science. Kathryn continued to participate as part of a 7-member working group on identifying frontiers in social-environmental systems research. This research was published in 2018 (Pulver et al. 2018).