History

For over 15 years, the Center for Ocean Solutions has enabled innovative solutions to address ocean challenges.

The Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions was created in 2008 as a partnership between Stanford University, Hopkins Marine Station, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. Under the leadership of Executive Director Meg Caldwell and Science Director Larry Crowder, the Center for Ocean Solutions initially concentrated on three focal areas critical to solving ocean challenges: climate change, land-sea interactions, and ecosystem health. The team worked with research and decision-making communities to understand how climate change is affecting the ocean and coasts. Project topics included coastal adaptation policy, California fisheries management, Kelp Forest Array monitoring, ocean tipping points, and rapid environmental disaster response. The Center also hosted the Monterey Area Research Institutions' Network for Education program, which provides professional development opportunities to prepare future ocean leaders for interdisciplinary, real-world problem-solving.

As Caldwell and Crowder concluded their time at the helm, the Center celebrated its 10-year anniversary and laid the foundation to expand its impact as a Stanford-based center within the Woods Institute for the Environment. Fiorenza Micheli and Jim Leape joined the team as co-directors in April 2017, bringing vision and experience to new initiatives. Together, our team seeks to catalyze research, innovation, and action to improve the health of the oceans for the people who depend on them most.

A hallmark of the Center's approach is convening collaborations that ensure not only cutting-edge science but also policy, management, and on-the-ground activities that lead to a healthier ocean. Using this approach, the Center launched several new initiatives: Oceans & Food, Sustainable Ocean Economies, Addressing Illegal Fishing and Labor Abuses, Managing Ocean Risk, and Small-Scale Fisheries & Tech. Each initiative is built on intensive collaborations with researchers across the university and with other leading institutions, government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and corporate partners. Through fellowships, student engagement, and advancing new project directions, these collaborations have been essential to our ambition — nearly 15 years since our creation — to work from insight to impact.