About Our Work

Our Three Pillars

The Human–Ocean Systems Lab is a quantitative¹ research group applying data science, spatial analysis, and causal inference to study how marine policy and environmental change influence human behavior at sea. We analyze large observational datasets—including vessel-tracking data, satellite observations, climate and storm records, and administrative data—to understand mobility, governance, and the socio-ecological consequences of policy decisions. Our work is divided into three topics:

1. Large-scale Marine Protected Areas: distributional outcomes, effectiveness, and social-ecological consequences.
2. Human responses to environmental and policy change: marine heatwaves, tropical cyclones, climate-driven shifts, and institutional reforms.
3. Mobility at sea: scales, structure, and drivers of human movement across ocean space.

Footnotes

1. Please note that we do not conduct fieldwork and that we don’t have a wet lab