Staci Lewis

Staci Lewis is an Early Career Fellow with the Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions and Woods Institute for the Environment with expertise in marine governance, social networks, coral ecology and federal ocean policy. She works on COS’ Palau project—a collaboration with Palau’s national-level decision makers to develop science priorities for its newly-created National Marine Sanctuary. Staci received her Ph.D. from Stanford’s Emmett Interdisciplinary Program for Environment and Resources where she studied Palau’s sociopolitical responses to environmental changes in coastal systems. In collaboration with University of Hawai’i researchers, she also studied the socioeconomics of Palau’s National Marine Sanctuary by assessing Palau’s seafood supply chain, dietary preferences of tourists and residents, and expenditures and fishing preferences of Palau’s fishers.

Preceding her Stanford tenure, Staci spent eight years in Washington, D.C. working in various ocean policy positions. First, she worked for two NOAA Administrators, as the NOAA liaison to the Obama Transition Team and NOAA’s staff liaison for the U.S. Global Climate Change Program. Next, Staci was the Policy Director for the Consortium for Ocean Leadership, a non-governmental organization, where she advocated for federal science policies and investments on behalf of the U.S. ocean research community.

Prior to D.C., Staci served as a Fulbright Fellow in Barbados focusing on coral reef health, and worked at Dauphin Island Sea Lab as a manager of four coral reef monitoring projects in three systems--Florida Keys (USA), Flower Garden Banks (USA), and Bocas Del Toro (Panama). Alongside her professional work in D.C., she obtained a Master’s in Environmental Science and Public Policy from George Mason University studying coral reef disease and U.S. federal climate science initiatives.