Making Waves
Advancing Ocean Acidification Science, Service and Stewardship with Dr. Sarah Cooley
Background image: Sarah Cooley wearing a life vest next to the coastline
Dr. Sarah Cooley is the next Director of NOAA’s Ocean Acidification Program (OAP). She brings decades of experience in ocean acidification science, interdisciplinary collaboration, communicating science and fundraising. She will bring expertise, vision, and passion for ocean science to advance efforts that help us prepare and adapt to ocean acidification.
Dive in with us to get to know this changemaker leading the OAP!
Background Image: Ocean and sky
What got you started in ocean acidification, also known as OA?
Did you know the huge plume of dissolved carbon dioxide from the Amazon River floats? During my PhD, I studied how this low salinity, low carbon dioxide plume carried its thriving plankton and nutrients through the Western Tropical North Atlantic. This unique environment alters how the entire tropical North Atlantic participates in the global carbon cycle. My work introduced me to ideas of how large and small drivers can alter how ocean processes and ecosystem impacts.
"The Amazon River plume got me thinking about how ocean carbon moves and how the marine ecosystem interacts with many processes."
After graduating, I wasn’t sure I wanted to continue with scientific research, and I spent some time doing scientific writing. I had the opportunity to work on a science communication project about OA, which was an emerging concern at the time. Digging into ocean acidification as a communicator pulled me back into the science. Before I knew it I was a postdoc at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute excitedly developing research projects examining how OA affects marine ecosystems and the people who depend on them.
I soon realized that working at the intersection of marine chemistry, biology, global change, and people was a great fit for me because it connected all the oceanographic disciplines I was most excited about, and connected it to people and our dependence on the ocean.
"Digging into ocean acidification as a communicator pulled me back into the science."
Background Image: Sarah Cooley in the lab
How do you catalyze action to support ecosystems and people facing ocean change?
For the last decade, I’ve worked across the science-policy interface. First, I help unpack and share knowledge gained by researchers on OA and other ocean change topics, so that people who aren’t carbon cycle specialists can take this knowledge into account in their work. This assists people working in resource management, business planning, environmental stewardship, and education.
"I help make sure that action to address ocean change happens in reasonable, feasible steps that are based on evidence and align with what communities want and need."
Second, I make sure that policies and plans help generate and apply new knowledge. This often took the form of helping secure robust funding for ocean science research, or making sure that proposed policies accurately reflect what research has uncovered. By making sure that there is a close handshake between knowledge generators (researchers) and knowledge users (the public and policymakers).
Background Image: Sarah Cooley having dinner next to an aquarium
What are you excited about with joining OAP and NOAA?
OAP has always been the center of federal science efforts to connect OA science, ecosystem outcomes, and human community concerns. Having worked on these three elements for the majority of my entire career hand-in-hand with OAP as an outside partner, I’m so honored now to lead the program. I’m excited to join this fantastic, experienced and effective team as we face new topics related to carbon cycle change, ecosystem responses, and human dimensions. If found working to both measure the problem of OA and test solutions rewarding.
“It is an incredibly rewarding way to put my training as a global change marine scientist and my experience as a marine policy expert to work.”
With this great team, I feel as though the sky’s the limit. I’m looking forward to expanding OAP’s partnerships inside and outside NOAA, so we can make the most out of every investment in OAP. I’m excited to share thoughts about how OAP can continue to involve communities in creating the ocean they need. I’m also excited to represent OAP and its partners in global conversations about climate action and safeguarding biodiversity. I cannot wait to learn from my OAP team where we can multiply our impact and contribute to ongoing efforts, such as managing our ocean ecosystems in a holistic, sustainable way.
"I’m excited to share thoughts about how OAP can continue to involve communities in creating the ocean they need."
Background Image: Ocean wave
What is something you want people to know about ocean acidification?
Nearly twenty years into focused research on ocean acidification, we know that…
OA usually acts as a chronic influence on marine organisms.
What we need to know now is how this interacts with other short- and long-term influences facing marine life. And unlocking these secrets will help us understand how this and many other ocean changes will affect marine ecosystems and the people who depend on them. We also can use our longstanding focus on OA to shed light on how marine systems may respond to other human influences, including those intended to repair OA and climate change.
We are entering into a new chapter of OA understanding, where we will be widening our focus to understand how to sustain social-ecological marine systems in the face of human-driven change.
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Credits:
All images with people credited to Sarah Cooley. Other images provided by NOAA.
