My applied marine social science research draws from my interdisciplinary training in human ecology and applied anthropology and embraces an engaged, ethnographic research approach, focused on contributing understanding about the social-ecological context necessary for decision-making. My research activities focus on three overlapping areas of Maine’s ocean economy: (1) marine fisheries (2) aquaculture, and (3) marine renewable energy, as well as the communities in which these ocean activities occur. My research is further concerned with understanding impacts of institutional and other social-ecological changes and threats facing communities; (2) social resilience, or how people, communities, and institutions respond to social-ecological change and associated impacts; and (3) opportunities and barriers for using participatory approaches to knowledge production and management to improve social-ecological system resilience. I teach undergraduate and graduate courses in marine policy and I advise graduate students in the Marine Policy graduate program, as well as the Ecology and Environmental Sciences (EES) graduate program.