The UCI’s signature annual event returns to Monmouth University’s historic Great Hall on Oct. 9. The theme of this year’s Future of the Ocean Symposium is “Exploring the Wine-Dark Sea – U.S. Ocean Science and Technology: Keys to Prosperity and Security.” Our 2025 Champion of the Ocean Awards Luncheon will directly follow.
This year we’ll also be celebrating the UCI’s 20th anniversary. Come and help us set sail to serve the University and our communities for the next two decades.
Visit our event page to view the current lineup of confirmed speakers and honorees and more information.
UCI Director Tony MacDonald (fifth from l) and fellow panelists in Nice, France.
Monmouth University Urban Coast Institute (UCI) Director Tony MacDonald attended the 2025 United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC) in Nice, France, from June 9-13. UNOC 2025 brought together over 15,000 diverse stakeholders from governments, UN agencies, international NGOs, civil society and the private sector to discuss ways to accelerate action to conserve and sustainably use the ocean. In addition to representing the UCI, MacDonald attended in his role as chair of the National Academy of Science Ocean Studies Board’s U.S. Decade Committee for Ocean Science for Sustainable Development and as a Global Ocean Forum (GOF) board member.
The panel was moderated by María José González-Bernat, Ph.D., co-director of the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA) Ecosystems Program, and Peter Ricketts, Ph.D., former president and vice-chancellor of Acadia University (Canada) and GOF Board member. Other panelists included:
H.E Ambassador Julio Cordano, director of environment, climate change and oceans, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Chile
H.E. Ambassador Viliami Va’inga Tone, permanent representative of the Kingdom of Tonga to the U.N.
Professor Robbert Dijkgraaf, former minister of education, culture and science of the Netherlands
Peter Haugan, policy director at Institute of Marine Research, Norway
Lynne Shannon, principal researcher leading the Marine Sustainability group in the Department of Biological Sciences, University of Cape Town
Professor Jean-Christophe Martin, University Cote d’Azur
Professor María Fernanda Morales Camacho, Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica
Louise Lieberknecht, senior expert in marine sustainability, GRID-Arendal
Jasmine Nyagah, University of Nairobi, Kenya
Kate Killerlain Morrison (l) and Sylvia Earle of Mission Blue.
Among the many ocean colleagues at UNOC 2025, MacDonald had the privilege of running into 2015 UCI National Champion of the Champion honoree and ocean explorer Sylvia Earle, Ph.D., and Kate Killerlain Morrison, former MARCO executive director and current managing director of Earle’s conservation organization, Mission Blue.
For more information on UNOC 2025 and its outcomes, click here.
Heather Korzun recently joined the Monmouth University Urban Coast Institute (UCI) as a community engagement fellow supported through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Coastal Resilience Fellowship Program.
In this role, Korzun will support UCI Associate Director Tom Herrington in coordinating project pipeline work for the Building a Climate Ready NJ initiative, which is funded by NOAA and led by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. In 2024, the UCI was named a partner in the initiative, which aims to harness statewide expertise to advance resilience planning, project design, construction, and education across New Jersey’s 16 coastal counties.
Korzun will work to ensure that multiple education, engagement, and training activities are planned and implemented in conjunction with Building a Climate Ready NJ core activities. She will work closely with Herrington and UCI Community Engagement Specialist Rachel Forbes to gather knowledge from residents, community leaders, and other stakeholders that will help identify resilience projects that are most needed and would be the most impactful. The recommendations will then be entered into the project pipeline for further study and eventual implementation.
Korzun most recently served as a planning fellow at the Land Conservancy of New Jersey, assisting municipalities across the state with developing open space and recreation plans and helping target lands that would be valuable for conservation. The communities she worked with ranged from rural towns with rolling hills of bucolic farmlands to some of the state’s most densely populated neighborhoods.
“What excites me most about this role is the opportunity to deepen my work in community engagement,” she said. “Working on Camden’s Coastal Resilience Plan helped me understand the community dynamics that impact planning efforts. I am grateful for the chance to learn from New Jersey’s coastal communities and help connect them with resources that strengthen their long-term resilience.”
A native of the Virginia Beach area, Korzun recalls first being drawn to environmental policy work as an undergraduate taking a sustainability in business course. She felt a sense of climate anxiety while delving into lessons about the ways climate change was disrupting ordinary people’s lives and felt a calling to act.
“I was really stressed about that for a while, but I realized that the only way to alleviate some of that anxiety was to do work that was directly part of the solutions,” she said.
Korzun graduated from Mary Baldwin University with a bachelor’s degree in sustainable business before completing her master of public administration at the University of Pennsylvania. As a student, she led community engagement projects and educational events about sustainability and has supported research projects on emerging contaminants and climate resilience.
Monmouth University students have begun mining a trove of water quality data collected by the Coastal Lakes Observing Network (CLONet) to make important discoveries about the health of a dozen local lakes and marine life populations within them.
Residents of participating lake communities, Monmouth University scientists and student researchers gathered on campus June 23 for the 2025 Coastal Lakes Summer Summit, where they shared insights and news on their work from the past year. Monmouth students delivered two presentations on what was found through a statistical analysis of CLONet data and environmental DNA (eDNA) materials collected from the waters.
Through CLONet, Monmouth University School of Science and Urban Coast Institute (UCI) staff and students partner with community groups and residents to sample coastal lakes in Monmouth County for temperature, salinity, clarity, dissolved oxygen, and phycocyanin levels – an important indicator of harmful algal blooms – and file their readings to an online database for analysis. Water bodies monitored include: Deal Lake, Fletcher Lake, Jackson Woods Pond, Lake Como, Lake Takanassee, Shadow Lake, Silver Lake, Spring Lake, Sunset Lake, Sylvan Lake, Wesley Lake and Wreck Pond. Since its launch in 2019, volunteer community scientists working with CLONet have collected over 2,200 water samples from Monmouth County lakes.
Sunset & Deal Lakes: A Tale of Two Fish Populations
Dylan DiBella, who graduated with a marine and environmental biology and policy (MEBP) degree in May, compared eDNA extracted from Sunset and Deal lakes over the course of several months with the CLONet water samples to see if any relationships between the water conditions and marine life emerged. Sampling eDNA is a crime scene investigation-style approach to marine detection that has emerged as a more humane and less expensive means of studying fish populations than traditional methods that require their capture. As fish swim through the waters, they leave behind dandruff-like cells and bodily fluids that can be analyzed and matched to the genetic barcodes of others to determine their species.
DiBella displayed a chart estimating the top 10 most abundant fish species that testing determined to be living in the lakes (see carousel above). He said he was surprised to learn how different they were given how geographically close they are to each other, pointing out there were no species shared between either lake’s top three.
His research, which was supported by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, also examined how certain fish species reacted to harmful algal blooms (HABs) and other changes in the waters. For example, he found a negative correlation between white perch eDNA and elevated polymerase chain reaction (PCR) readings, which can be an indicator of a HAB’s onset. This suggests white perch can serve a living warning system to those who manage the lakes.
“Think about the canaries in the coal mine back in the day. Once the canaries start dropping, you know the air quality is not good anymore,” DiBella said. “White perch can function in the same exact way. Once we see it start to respond to harmful algal blooms, we may be able to determine where it’s going to occur and when it’s going to occur, and it can indicate the overall health of the lakes.”
Wesley Lake Sees Improvements
MEBP student Olivia Fowles and statistics students Anthony Stirone, and Brandon Govea, who all earned their degrees in May, sought to discern whether there were any notable long-term or seasonal trends visible in the water data over the years. The team also focused on whether the data showed any changes in water quality in areas where communities had invested in green infrastructure.
A view of floating wetland islands on Wesley Lake in Asbury Park and Ocean Grove.
In 2020, Wesley Lake underwent a restoration project that included the installation of 12 floating wetland islands that have native plants growing upon them and roots that reach into the water. The islands were designed to remove excess phosphorous and nitrogen that fuel HABs while providing extra habitat within the heavily developed environment. While community members at the meeting said they’ve seen birds and fish taking advantage of the islands, their benefits to water quality had not been measured until now.
According to the team’s analysis, Welsey Lake saw dissolved oxygen (DO) levels improve at a rate greater than any other CLONet lake in the years since the islands were added. Endowed Professor of Marine Science Jason Adolf noted that seeing DO improvements is an important milestone, as low oxygen levels are frequently tied to fish kills, HABs, and poor lake health overall.
“Just like you and me, two minutes without oxygen is going to kill something in the water,” Adolf said.
Among other findings, Sylvan Lake has not yet seen a DO increase since it began a series of living shoreline project in 2019. However, water clarity levels were found to have improved and conductivity increased, indicating it has become saltier.
More on CLONet
Slides from these and other presentations delivered at the meeting can be downloaded here.
To learn more about CLONet, including how to volunteer to monitor your community lake, visit the CLONet website or email Community Science Coordinator Erin Conlon at econlon@monmouth.edu. You can also visit the CLONet Data Explorer to view data on lake averages, how individual lakes compare to the full group, and more.
As New Jersey’s coastal communities prepare for summer boating and hurricane season, a unique public-private partnership is advancing a smart, sustainable approach to protecting our coast. The New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT), in coordination with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, academic institutions and nonprofit partners, has launched the Regional Sediment Management Framework (RSMF), a guide to restoring and safeguarding the state’s valuable wetlands and iconic waterfronts.
A dredge vessel near Manasquan Inlet.
The RSMF presents solutions to two simultaneous and pressing challenges—maintaining our navigation channels and helping our coastal marshes survive while facing and losing ground to increasing erosion and rising sea levels. It offers a new model for managing sediment as a resource and prioritizing projects that deliver multiple benefits for people, nature and the economy.
New Jersey’s back bays and coastal waterways must be routinely dredged to support the state’s $50 billion maritime economy, which includes marinas, boat ramps and other infrastructure that many coastal communities and visitors rely on. Traditionally, dredged sediment is treated as waste and transported to upland disposal sites while nearby wetlands and marshes are starved of the sediment needed to thrive and function as natural buffers.
The RSMF’s approach keeps sediment in the estuary system whenever possible, spreading it on marshes to nourish the habitat, give grasses a foothold and enhance community protection from flooding and storms. Since 2013, the NJDOT has used more than 1 million cubic yards of dredged material to restore marshes and beaches. RSMF will expand and accelerate the practice across more sites and projects.
June 1 was the beginning of hurricane season in New Jersey, underscoring the importance of strengthening our natural defenses. Restored marshes reduce wave energy and flood risk, offering cost-effective protection for nearby neighborhoods while providing critical habitat for fish and wildlife.
The RSMF is an important first step in scaling up marsh nourishment efforts, but long-term success requires sustained legislative funding so that the NJDOT can perform dredging that ensures safe navigation and restores our salt marshes. This sensible approach builds resilience to sea level rise and increasingly frequent storms for New Jersey’s coastal communities, supports recreational maritime activities and provides needed habitat for fish, birds and other wildlife.
Kudos to the NJDOT for initiating development of the RSMF, and to the NJDEP and others for fully supporting it. The initiative is a successful model for using nature in New Jersey to meet the challenges of maritime recreation, marshland restoration and community resilience. For the program to flourish, now we need advocacy and action to secure sustained and adequate funding resources.
– Dr. Barbara Brummer is the state director of The Nature Conservancy in New Jersey. Tony MacDonald is the director of the Monmouth University Urban Coast Institute.
Rechnitz Family/Urban Coast Institute Endowed Chair in Marine and Environmental Law and Policy Peter Jacques has authored a chapter in the newly published book, “A Research Agenda for Sustainable Ocean Governance” (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2025).
His chapter, “Original Instructions for the World Ocean: An Indigenist Research Agenda,” advocates for integrating Indigenous knowledge systems into global ocean governance. He argues that current governance models often marginalize Indigenous perspectives, leading to policies that overlook the rights and contributions of Indigenous communities.
Jacques emphasizes the importance of recognizing the “original instructions” — the traditional ecological knowledge and cultural practices of Indigenous peoples — as vital to sustainable ocean management. By incorporating these perspectives, he suggests that ocean governance can become more equitable and effective in addressing environmental challenges.
The chapter begins by critiquing Western approaches to the ocean, such as a 1609 norm of “freedom of the seas” that promotes a “take all you can” attitude that has been destructive to marine life and ecosystems. Jacques then argues for us to learn from an Indigenous perspective that requires we see the ocean as both a living relative and a place where many other non-human persons live. We must treat the ocean with respect, a sense of responsibility, and reciprocity – that is, to give back to it in equal measure the things we take from it.
Edited by Justin Alger and U. Rashid Sumaila, “A Research Agenda for Sustainable Ocean Governance” brings together an international array of expert authors to explore innovative and interdisciplinary pathways forward for ocean governance. The volume examines practices and governance of ocean fisheries, international cooperation, and local practices for sustainable oceans. It also analyzes emergent themes such as the impact of deep-sea tourism and plastic pollution on the oceans, providing a roadmap for shaping ocean governance across the globe to achieve long-term sustainability.
The Monmouth University Urban Coast Institute (UCI) will provide funding for four students and their faculty mentors to conduct summer research projects through its Heidi Lynn Sculthorpe Scholars program. In addition, a UCI Faculty Enrichment Grant has been awarded to Associate Professor Meghan Delaney to advance her research on ecotherapy, which focuses on contact with nature as a method for element of counseling.
Heidi Lynn Sculthorpe Scholars grants support students and faculty of all disciplines in pursuing their passions for marine and coastal issues through experiential research. The program provides grant opportunities for student researchers and faculty mentors to conduct projects of their own design that advance the UCI’s mission and Monmouth’s Strategic Plan. Each year, the program funds several hands-on research positions that provide real-world experience to students while helping make a positive impact in coastal communities.
Student Summer Research Grants
The Anomaly of Coral Reef Conservation
Student Researcher and Major: Audrey Copeland, political science
Faculty Mentor: Rechnitz Family/UCI Endowed Chair in Marine and Environmental Law and Policy Peter Jacques
Analysis will focus on the comparative lack of ocean conservation measures being taken in the Caribbean relative to the critical importance that healthy reefs play in the region’s economy and ecosystems.
Beachcomber’s Guide to the New Jersey Shore
Student Researcher and Major: Diederik Boonman Morales, marine and environmental biology and policy
Faculty Mentor: Professor Pedram Daneshgar, Ph.D., Department of Biology/Marine and Environmental Biology and Policy Program
A field guide will be created for beachgoers to learn about common organisms found along New Jersey’s beaches. The guide will include photos to aid with visual identification, short descriptions of each organism’s key characteristics, behavior, and habitat preferences, and more.
Social Impacts of Coastal Disasters in Randolph, N.J., During Hurricane Sandy
Student Researcher and Major: Bryana Ruiz, biology
Faculty Mentor: Rechnitz Family/UCI Endowed Chair in Marine and Environmental Law and Policy Peter Jacques
Using the Morris County municipality of Randolph’s experience during Hurricane Sandy as a case study, the researcher will explore how factors such as neighborhood history and social conditions can shape risk and vulnerability to climate hazards.
A Study of Invasive Species Persistence in the Presence of Pollution Using Nonautonomous Lotka-Volterra Models
Student Researcher and Major: Miriam Abecasis, mathematics and software engineering (double major)
Faculty Mentor: Assistant Professor Torrey Gallagher, Ph.D., Department of Mathematics
The project aims to develop mathematical models describing the effects of pollution, contaminants, and runoff on the spread and persistence of invasive species in New Jersey waterways.
Faculty Enrichment Grant
The Influence of Ecotherapy and EcoWellness on Counselor Burnout
Faculty Researcher: Associate Professor Megan Delaney, Ph.D., LPC, Department of Psychology
This research will probe whether practicing ecotherapy and fostering ecowellness can buffer against burnout in mental health professionals, and if so, what the associated factors are.
Additional Funding Opportunities
Monmouth University students and faculty are invited to apply now for additional summer and fall Heidi Lynn Sculthorpe Scholars funding opportunities. Grants available include:
Faculty Enrichment Grants for the enhancement of existing curriculum, new curriculum development, research and scholarship, and team-teaching opportunities. Proposals for fall grants will be accepted through Aug. 22.
Mini-Grants are also available to faculty and students for conference fees, symposia, guest speaker honoraria, equipment and supplies, and other needs to be determined on a case-by-case-basis. Applications can be submitted at any time and are reviewed on a rolling basis.
Those interested may apply via the UCI Funding Opportunities page on the MyMU Portal (Monmouth University sign-in credentials required). For more information, contact UCI Associate Director Tom Herrington at therring@monmouth.edu.
These opportunities have been made possible through the generous support of many corporate and private donors. If you would like to make a tax-deductible gift to the UCI, please use our Give a Gift Now form.
From l-r: Marcos DeJesus, Eliana Duarte, and Victoria Rivoli discuss the process of creating the reef shapes.
When art imitates life, will it breed more life? An experimental collaboration between the Monmouth University Urban Coast Institute (UCI) and Department of Art and Design aims to find out.
On Earth Day, Associate Professor of Art Kimberly Callas and students Marcos DeJesus, Eliana Duarte, and Victoria Rivoli delivered a presentation on their work creating 3D-printed sculptures that mimic the shapes of reefs that are commonly found in Mid-Atlantic waters. These sculptures will soon be placed in the UCI’s aquaculture tanks at Naval Weapons Station Earle to learn whether oyster larvae are any more likely to colonize them than the cinder block-shaped oyster castles or other materials that have been used to build an artificial reef off the facility’s shores.
Callas and the students began studying reef shapes in the fall, consulting UCI Coastal Resilience and Restoration Practitioner Meredith Comi and Marine Biology Technician Amanda Boddy for insights on how to make them lifelike. They initially created a group of small prototypes with soft materials like clay and foam that were 3D scanned and manipulated digitally to add texture and refinements. Once the digital models were 3D printed, students made rubber molds of them and cast them in a concrete material that is ocean safe. The pieces were then scaled up to craft a group of harder sculptures of varying sizes that attendees at the presentation could touch and feel.
A view of some of the reef sculptures (top) on display during the presentation and digital renderings (bottom) that were used to create them.
Comi said the sculptures will be placed in the tanks over the summer and monitored with the help of a team of marine and environmental biology and policy students. The shapes and textures that are most successful will be reproduced as larger marine concrete versions in the 30-pound range – hefty enough to withstand the pounding of the waves and currents, but light enough for the team to handle.
“It has been such a rich experience for my students to participate in this collaboration and work with scientists to come up with these ideas that are actually going to be involved in research and shore protection,” Callas said.
The research being conducted at the Earle reef is restoring the environment while producing valuable data on the power of nature-based solutions for improving coastal resilience. Oysters are famous as nature’s water purifiers, with one adult capable of filtering excess nitrogen and pollutants from 50 gallons per day. As the reef structures accumulate sediment and become further armored by the oysters and other organisms growing on them, they can also serve as “speed bumps” that blunt the force of waves and prevent erosion. Funding for the research was secured by Congressman Frank Pallone and is administered through Office of Naval Research grant N00014-24-1-2035.
Kimberly Callas shows one of the reef shapes that will be tested for oyster recruitment.
UCI Associate Director Tom Herrington said the sculpture project will serve as an opportunity to experiment with new shapes, sizes, formations and textures to determine if they provide any advantages for shore stabilization.
“The living laboratory gives us a chance to test these ideas in the natural environment by measuring wave energy across the reef, changes in the currents, and how the shoreline changes over time,” Herrington said. “What we’re trying to understand is not only what geometries work best, but also what topographies work best. The partnership with the Art Department and Kimberly’s students has allowed us to think outside the box.”
A team of Monmouth University computer science students has created a mobile app version of the Mid-Atlantic Ocean Data Portal, giving users access to a sea of coastal and ocean maps wherever they may be. The app is available for free download on Google Play and the Apple App Store.
The Portal (portal.midatlanticocean.org) is a publicly accessible GIS site containing over 6,000 interactive maps showing vessel traffic patterns, marine life distributions, commercial fishing grounds, recreation hot spots, offshore infrastructure locations, and much more. Maintained by the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council on the Ocean (MARCO) – a partnership of five states from New York to Virginia working to enhance the vitality of the region’s ocean ecosystem and economy – the site has become an influential tool for informing ocean management decisions and a valuable educational resource. However, due to the complexity of its GIS web app (called “Marine Planner”), the Portal has limited compatibility with smaller handheld devices.
May 2023 graduates Nolan Beagell, Chelsea Spencer and Ava Taylor set out to build a solution during a senior project course taught by Specialist Professor Raman Lakshmanan. As part of the course, teams can choose a capstone project from a pool of ideas proposed from external clients. Urban Coast Institute (UCI) Communications Director Karl Vilacoba, who manages the Portal technical team, and Ecotrust Senior Software Developer Ryan Hodges, the site’s developer, floated a few possibilities related to the Portal, including developing new tools on the site and creating an app. The team picked the latter and collaborated with Vilacoba and Hodges to get it started.
The group unveiled a beta version of the app for users to test and share their feedback at MARCO’s 2024 Mid-Atlantic Ocean Forum in New York City. MARCO was impressed by what it saw, and the organization provided grant funding to the UCI to finish the job.
Anjali Narang (left) and Ava Taylor.
Under the direction of Lakshmanan, Taylor was contracted after graduation to continue her work along with Monmouth computer science senior Anjali Narang. The duo refined the technology out of the Computer Science and Software Engineering Department’s Mobile Apps and AR/VR Lab in Howard and Edison Halls, with Taylor leading the iOS version’s development and Narang the Android product.
Although some advanced maps and capabilities from the desktop site are currently not available on the app, it does contain new functionalities that are unique from the Portal. Among them are a GPS indicator that shows where you’re located in real time on the map, the ability to swipe right to unlock commands, and options to select “favorite” or “active” layers, which serves as a simple alternative to the Bookmarks tool on the desktop site. Taylor and Narang said many design choices were made to put an iPhone and Android twist on what the Portal does.
“The user experience on a phone is much different than a computer, so we wanted to replicate instinctual movements, icons, and things you’d find on other apps we were familiar with,” Taylor said. “We wanted to take the website and give it that iPhone feel. We grew up with this technology and knew what would feel intuitive for a user.”
Their faithful attention to the details of iPhone and Android products led them to make the versions slightly different. For example, certain button icons and color conventions that are commonly found on one or the other were adopted.
“I’ve worked on three apps for Android that were all based on an iOS app, and every time it would look slightly different,” Narang said. “If I tried to make it look exactly the same, it just wouldn’t feel right.”
Lakshmanan said the project was the most rewarding his students have ever worked on in terms of delivering the full experience of creating a product for a client and advancing it to the market. The team viewed their opportunities to collaborate with a seasoned software developer in Hodges and to enhance the product based on constructive input from multiple in-person conferences and MARCO meetings as particularly valuable.
“They got to learn what it takes to get real products out into the field,” Lakshmanan said. “You can’t teach that in a class, per se. A project like this that gives them the best hands-on experience.”
MARCO is excited about the potential new audiences and uses of its data that the app will unlock.
“Using the MARCO app, a beachgoer can browse our maps, for example, to identify something interesting they see offshore, or a family out fishing on their boat can look for nearby reefs or wrecks,” MARCO Executive Director Avalon Bristow said. “Uses like these were limited in the past because people would have needed a computer and Internet access.”
Update 4/4: The deadline for submissions has been extended to April 18.
The Urban Coast Institute (UCI) invites Monmouth University students of all majors to apply for 2025 Heidi Lynn Sculthorpe Scholars Summer Research Grants. The deadline for submissions is April 18.
Funding is available for projects proposed by undergraduate and graduate students that will be completed under the guidance of a faculty mentor, or projects proposed by a faculty member that will be completed with the support of student researchers. All proposals relevant to the mission of the UCI will be considered. Some specific topics of interest to the UCI include:
Enhancing Consideration for comprehensive community wellbeing as Coastal Communities adjust to changing coastal hazards
Impacts of sea level rise on coastal environments and communities
Environmental and social issues related to offshore wind development
Social impacts of coastal disasters
Coastal ecosystem adaptation planning
Financing resilience
The blue economy and blue tech
Marine and environmental arts and humanities
Furthering the UN Decade of the Ocean Sustainable Development Goals at the international, national and local levels
