Pew’s 2025 Marine Fellows Work to Conserve Ocean Species and Ecosystems

The Pew Fellows Program in Marine Conservation has named six scientists from China, Curaçao, Indonesia, the Philippines, and South Africa as the newest recipients of the Pew fellowships in marine conservation. Each will lead a three-year research project designed to improve management and protection of marine life.

For 35 years, The Pew Charitable Trusts has supported a community of scientists and other experts undertaking research to understand and mitigate pressing challenges in the marine environment. The information produced by fellows’ projects is crucial for guiding effective stewardship of complex ocean ecosystems.

Safeguarding marine species

Two members of this year’s cohort will help guide the preservation of threatened marine species and their habitats. Dr. Stephen C.Y. Chan, co-director of research at the Cetacea Research Institute in Hong Kong, will collaborate with coastal communities, government managers, and nongovernmental organizations to develop a conservation plan for Chinese white dolphins in the region, where the marine mammals have lost a large portion of their habitat because of land reclamation projects. He plans to gather and analyze multiple types of data to understand how the dolphins select and use their habitat and then apply mathematical models to predict other potential habitable areas for the species that can be prioritized for protection.

Dr. Edy Setyawan, lead conservation scientist at the Elasmobranch Institute Indonesia, will use a combination of tools—including acoustic telemetry, radio frequency identification tags, and mathematical models—to investigate the life history, population status, habitat preferences, and movement patterns of Raja Ampat epaulette sharks—a little-studied species that is declining despite existing legal protections. He plans to use this information to better understand these small bottom-dwelling sharks with the goal of developing recommendations to improve conservation and management plans for the species.

Improving restoration of declining coral reefs

Two of the 2025 Pew marine fellows are working to restore and rebuild damaged or declining coral reefs, which provide vital services to coastal communities—including shoreline protection—and create habitats for nearly a quarter of all marine species. Dr. Aileen Maypa, an associate professor and research coordinator at Silliman University in the Philippines, will help to accelerate the recovery of the country’s degraded coral reefs by developing science-based and community-friendly protocols for effective reef restoration. She plans to collaborate with coral restoration scientists, practitioners, and government agencies to convene the country’s first nationwide coral restoration-focused network and to work with communities to develop toolkits outlining effective practices that can contribute to local and national biodiversity policy frameworks.

Dr. Kristen Marhaver, an associate scientist at the Curaçao-based CARMABI Foundation, plans to develop new techniques for human-assisted coral breeding, which would help scientists and restoration teams expand captive breeding of endangered corals and make coral gene banks more useful for conservation. Working in the southern Caribbean, she will test new laboratory methods for fertilizing coral eggs, a critical process that often fails when corals are rare or stressed. She will also collaborate with conservation organizations in Curaçao to foster a community of divers, students, and researchers with coral breeding and restoration expertise.

Engaging communities to evaluate conservation practices

Working with communities to manage and protect vulnerable ocean ecosystems is an area of focus for Pew marine fellows. Dr. Hesti Widodo, senior program manager at the Coral Triangle Center in Indonesia, will work with seven pilot sites in the country that are seeking government verification as Other Effective area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs)—a promising new conservation approach—to develop a method for evaluating and reporting their impact. She plans to collaborate closely with communities, nongovernmental organizations, and government agencies to develop indicators to evaluate the inclusion and equitable distribution of OECM benefits, such as revenue from tourism, to ensure that these benefits meet community needs. Widodo will also develop learning modules and provide training to help conservation practitioners and the government to manage Indonesian OECMs.

Dr. Linda Harris, a research associate at Nelson Mandela University in South Africa, will use a combination of remote sensing data and field surveys to classify and map sandy beach ecosystems across 10 countries in southern Africa. She plans to use this information to inform regional conservation efforts by assessing the distribution, ecological condition, threat status, and protection levels of these often-overlooked but important coastal ecosystems. Additionally, Harris hopes to establish a regional network of scientists and practitioners focused on sandy beach management and provide training and tools to enhance their work. She will also convene an international research symposium in South Africa to share findings, promote collaboration, and raise awareness about the need for sandy beach conservation.

Learn more about the 2025 fellows and their projects.

Leo Curran is project director of the Pew Fellows Program in Marine Conservation.