Only 2 more weeks?! I can’t believe how time has flown by! I’ll update you all on my projects, but first, I think it’s important to let you know that my team won the annual EDF summer picnic kickball game. Woohoo! We get free breakfast in the office next week 🙂 Unfortunately, my phone died shortly after I took these photos.. But as you can see it was a beautiful, sunny day at Lake Temescal.

I learned a lot about microclimates that day–though it may be foggy and freezing in Pacific Heights, make sure to WEAR A HAT, BRING SUNSCREEN, and DRESS IN LAYERS if you are heading out to the East Bay, because it will be sunny and at least 10 degrees warmer…And you will be very upset at yourself for having not followed these rules, and you will spend a large part of the day cowering in whatever shade you can find.

As far as work goes: I am gearing up for a “deep dive” to present my research and findings thus far to the Oceans team. It’s a good opportunity for me to elicit feedback and brainstorm some suggestions for behavioral interventions on the 6 fishery management challenges I chose to discuss in my paper: resisting data-limited assessment, translating science to management action, communicating science and uncertainty, catch misreporting, discarding, and destructive fishing. Designing effective behavioral interventions requires an understanding of how internal factors (such as individual psychological biases, values, morals, etc.) and external variable (situational environments, peer/community influences, etc.) combine to influence a person’s behavior and decision-making. I’ve spent the past several weeks deconstructing and characterizing each challenge to better understand the specific motivations and drivers for the depreciative and undesired behaviors. The generic interventions I propose in the assessment are for illustrative purposes only and are neither prescriptive nor a panacea for all fishery management problems. Every fishery is unique and interventions need to be specific to local needs and situations– but hopefully, this research will help establish a broader context for discussion regarding challenges in fishery management that may be amenable to behavioral interventions.

Needless to say, I have learned so much from this project and have really enjoyed researching and learning about cognitive biases and behavior change. Must be why time is going by so quickly!