Community and collaboration in science

During the Spring 2023 semester, NNI was thrilled to host a USC Environmental Studies undergraduate intern. We are grateful to Intern Ryan Stanley for the hard work he put in to habitat restoration and avian monitoring activities. We are also grateful to Dr. Yael Wolinsky-Nahmias for facilitating this internship. Below, Ryan shares his insight into some of the connections he made between his time at NNI and his other environmental work conducted at USC.

Hi, I am Ryan Stanley a third-year student at USC studying Environmental Studies with an emphasis in Oceans, Life, and People. I volunteered with Nature Nexus Institute and conducted greenhouse operations and habitat restoration in the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook and Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area. I am also involved in variety of projects and activities at USC, including a research course called Practical Aquaculture where my classmates and I work at AltaSea, an aquaculture research and development facility located at the Port of Los Angeles.

I recently had the opportunity to present to NNI’s high school students about my work at AltaSea and was posed the question about what greater connection I see between my habitat restoration work and my projects at AltaSea.

One of the projects I work on at AltaSea is kelp aquaculture project which hopes to use farmed seaweed to sequester atmospheric carbon as biomass into the ocean and into soil as fertilizer. Much of our research is still new and untested making each day at AltaSea a new and exciting challenge. What I have found connecting AltaSea and NNI is that to be successful with large projects and broader environmental goals, a diverse community and collaboration is essential. Much of my classmates and professors at AltaSea come from a variety of academic disciplines and experiences, meaning we are each contributing something different to the advancement of our project. At NNI I found that my supervisors and I foster a similar community of collaboration. As we work to restore local habitats, we also engage local park visitors about the nature of work and how to get involved.

While you can always conduct research and other projects independently, to make something work cohesively you need a greater community behind you. Much of the projects that occur at AltaSea require support from policy, science, and social organizations, just as NNI relies on a vibrant volunteer network and community support. The expertise and knowledge I’ve gained from my supervisors at NNI and AltaSea has also shown me how education is enhanced in a community setting. As I continue to work at both of these organizations, I hope to continue to learn more and create positive impacts on sustainability and environment.