Meet our team
Dr. Gerald Singh
Assistant Professor
Dr. Gerald Singh is an Assistant Professor and Ocean Nexus Chair in Global Change and Sustainable Development with the School of Environmental Studies at the University of Victoria. He has a PhD in Resource Management and Environmental Sciences from the University of British Columbia. Singh is also the Deputy Research Director with the Nippon Foundation Ocean Nexus Center. His research is primarily situated in the science-policy interface, and focused on understanding the dynamics between social, economic, and environmental dimensions in sustainable development. This focus takes form in the following ways: 1) assessing cumulative anthropogenic impacts on the environment and understanding the consequences to people; 2) determine priority policy actions and plans to achieve specific sustainable development objectives (particularly the Sustainable Development Goals); 3) understand risk and uncertainty in sustainability policy and management. Doing work in any one of these areas means navigating data gaps, and Singh uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches, as well as structured expert elicitation, in his research.
Marcela Faralhi
MSc student
Marcela Faralhi Daolio is a Brazilian biologist of Italian and Tupi-Guarani ancestrally. Marcela is passionate about the marine environment and its ecological, spiritual, political, and emotional
importance to the communities that depend on it. She is currently working on her master’s thesis at the University of Victoria and has the privilege of working with Indigenous communities in British Columbia on adaptation planning and assessing the cumulative effects on their marine system. Marcela was also an intern in Climate Change Adaptation and Food Security at the First Nations Health Authority (FNHA), where she developed communication pieces for adaptation initiatives in Indigenous communities and Food Security and Sovereignty Frameworks. In her free time she likes to enjoy the ocean, waterfalls and watch marine animal behavior. E-mail: faralhimarcela@uvic.ca
Bryan Woodward
MSc student
Bryan is a Master’s student in Environmental Studies with a research focus on how social media is used to discuss key food security topics in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region, Northwest Territories. He has a B.A in Geography – Environment and Sustainability (minors in Psychology and Urban Planning) from the University of British Columbia and has a keen interest in topics of sustainable development, equitable climate adaptation and mitigation, food security, northern food systems, and environmental health. In his spare time, he enjoys playing soccer, skiing, exploring beaches and watching sunsets.
Esteban Bada Sánchez
PhD student
I am a biologist; I did my undergraduate studies at the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla (Puebla, Mexico), focusing my research on small-scale shark fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico. I completed my master’s degree at El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (Campeche, Mexico), where I conducted a stock assessment for the Atlantic sharpnose shark using data-limited methodologies. I am a Ph.D. student at the University of Victoria (Victoria, Canada) in the School of Environmental Studies in the Strategies for a Changing Ocean Lab with Dr. Gerald G. Singh. My research focuses on how the Mexican fisheries management instruments can have unintended and negative impacts on the fisheries and well-ness of the fishers.
Dorothy Hodgins
Research assistant
Dorothy Hodgins (she/her) is a research assistant under the UVic School of Environmental Studies, supporting the Canadian Commission for UNESCO’s Ocean Decade Working Group. She recently graduated from UVic with a BA in Indigenous Studies, Enviornmental Studies and Political Science. She is a settler of English and Scottish ancestry, who is passionate about intersectional feminism, decolonization and equity-based climate action. She has worked with NGOs on environmental justice canvassing and the BC Public Service in Indigenous consultation and service planning. Dorothy’s current research with Gerald and CCUNESCO centres around elucidating different models of co-design that forefront equity-based approaches to coastal planning, with a focus on Indigenous-led design. This work will be detailed in the working group’s final report “A Review and Assessment of Different Forms of Co-Design for Transformative Equity in Ocean Science
Vahid Karimi
Visiting scholar
Vahid is a PhD visiting student in the environmental studies department, advised Dr. Gerald Singh. He is from Iran, where he graduated with a BSc in extension and education of sustainable agriculture and natural resources, and an MSc in extension and education of sustainable agriculture and natural resources, all from Shiraz University. He is a PhD student at Tarbiat Modares University in Iran. His research interests span adaptation to climate change, climate justice, vulnerability, biodiversity governance, ecological restoration, and resilience. Moreover, he is interested in sharing the social impacts of climate change knowledge beyond the walls of academia. For her master’s thesis, he explored Livestock farmers’ adaptation and vulnerability to climate change in Iran. He also has experience as a reviewer in more than 10 international journals. Furthermore, he can work with quantitative and qualitative software (AMOS, VOSviwer, CiteSpace, UCINET, SPSS, Super Decision, EndNote, and SciMAT). For his PhD thesis, he will soci-institutional analysis of biodiversity transformative governance and climate change justice for international wetlands management.
Affiliated Students
Justine Keefer
PhD candidate
Justine Keefer is a PhD candidate in Environmental Studies at the University of Victoria under the supervision of Professor Deborah Curran. She is an editorial fellow with JELP and a research fellow with the Balance Co-Lab. Her research concerns Indigenous water and treaty rights, cumulative impact management, and water governance.
Kaitlyn Diederichs
MSc student
Kaitlyn Diederichs is a University of Victoria M.Sc. student primarily researching landscape sensitivity to permafrost thaw and the resulting geotechnical hazards. Her other research interests include the interactions of ecosystems, people and geology, in particular in Canadian and Arctic contexts; instrumentation and remote sensing as tools to improve hazard management outcomes and climate adaptability for more resilient transportation corridors; and equity, diversity and inclusivity particularly in relation to field safety. Kaitlyn holds a B.A.Sc. in Systems Design Engineering from the University of Waterloo and can often be found canoeing or hiking near the lakes of Ontario.
Past members
Mairi Meehan
Postdoctoral fellow
Mairi Miller-Meehan is a PhD student working in marine conservation and policy. She is interested in identifying MPA network effectiveness, how networks can be evaluated to identify outcomes of MPA network implementation and achieving social and ecological benefits.
Leah Fusco
Postdoctoral fellow
Leah Fusco is a geographer with research interests in resource development, energy, environmental policy and planning, consultation processes, and climate justice. She received a PhD from the University of Toronto, where she conducted research on environmental assessment and review processes related to offshore oil development and fracking in Newfoundland and Labrador, including community participation and opposition to project proposals. Her current research expands on this, taking a comparative approach to look at the use of strategic environmental assessments internationally as well as on the ground in regional spaces.
Zaman Sajid
PhD candidate
Zaman Sajid is trained as an engineer and specializes in systems analysis and risk assessment, working at the intersection of ocean change, cumulative risk impacts, and coastal industries. He received his Ph.D. in Process Engineering from Memorial University, Canada, and has conducted research to develop dynamic environmental risk models for oil spills and offshore industries. Dr. Sajid has an interest and experience working on sustainability, life cycle assessment, and energy and environmental policymaking. He also holds a Master of Engineering degree from the University of Strathclyde, UK. He is currently leading a large interdisciplinary, international team to understand how ocean change contributes to the risk of mass die-off events in salmon aquaculture systems. As a Research Associate at Nippon Foundation Ocean Nexus Center at the University of Washington, USA, he works on a collaborative project titled ‘Global Change and Risk in Ocean Decisions’.