Current School of Marine and Environmental Affairs first-year student, Adrien Glenn Owens was recently published in the February 2022 edition of Marine Policy. She was a co-author on the paper “Lessons learned from a natural resource disaster: The long-term impacts of the Long Island Sound lobster die-off on individuals and communities”. A result of the research she conducted while earning her Bachelor’s degree in Marine Biology at the University of New Haven.

The paper examines the social impacts of a 1999 large-scale mortality event of lobsters in the Long Island Sound. While numerous studies have attempted to explain the die-off from a biological and ecological perspective, very little was done to show the broad and long-term social impacts the demise of the lobster population had on the communities along the Long Island Sound.

As a SMEA student, Owens is working on a thesis under Dr. Yoshitaka Ota and the Ocean Nexus Center. Her thesis “aims to evaluate the spiritual pluralisms that exist across communities and how these beliefs may influence the implementation and success of local marine conservation efforts”.