Shalimar M
- Research Program Mentor
PhD Doctor of Philosophy candidate
Expertise
Ecology, marine biology, oceanography, fisheries management, environmental policy, remote sensing
Project ideas
Coral Reef Health
Formulating your own research ideas can seem like a daunting task from afar but is a lot more manageable once you start brainstorming. A project idea we could work on can involve using existing datasets to tackle an ecological question. For example, using a dataset to analyze coral reef health over time and assess impacts (i.e., bleaching events, disturbances, high temperatures, etc.) by doing basic statistical analysis. This project will involve learning to use excel and potentially R to run statistics. But don’t be scared about having to use math if you're interested in marine science. There are many resources that can help explain statistics, or we could look at the social dimensions of reefs, management, and conservation by analyzing environmental policy instead. There’s so many approaches that you can take to focus on your own strengths or what you hope to learn and improve on.