This seminar examines the regulations that serve as the legal underpinning for marine resources management – from the rules and institutions, to the legal authority and mechanisms. Lectures and guest speakers will focus on providing a basic understanding of the legal framework for ocean management in the Latin American context. Case studies will include regulatory examples from small-scale fisheries (including catch-shares and self-governance), MPA zoning, and transboundary fisheries governance. Students will participate in class discussions with a selection of guest speakers and craft an individual memo and a group memo on specific regulatory topics throughout this weeklong seminar. 

This seminar course explores key social and environmental themes related to the growing contribution of aquaculture to world food production. Students interact with world-renowned experts from aquaculture science, management, and industry, leading discussions that examine global seafood production, environmental sustainability, the capacity for ecosystem and fisheries enhancement, and the socio-economic implications and impacts of multiple types of aquaculture. The discussions focus on the development of aquaculture in Latin America through speakers with expertise in that region. 

The objective of this course is to develop a practical understanding of the main concepts of resource economics, their applications to fisheries, and their implementation in real life settings of fisheries management. The course is structured in way that the theoretical concepts covered in the classroom will be applied in the context of real-life management challenges. At the end of the course, students should have a clear understanding of (i) the linkages between fisheries biology and the economic incentives from a user’s perspective, (ii) the sources of conflict and inefficiency, and (iii) the methodologies to overcome management challenges. 

The “Challenge of Science Leadership” course is instructed as an intensive workshop over three consecutive full days. The curriculum was designed by the UK-based Barefoot Thinking Group and focuses on effective tools and techniques that early career science professionals can employ to enhance individual effectiveness as leaders within their diverse collaborative and individual professional endeavors.

The highly interactive course draws on individual's unique experiences to unlock effective tactics for: thinking strategically (from engaging different thinking styles, to creative thinking around around scoping, scoping, analyzing, visioning, and innovating); influencing behavior (from leadership styles and giving feedback); and enabling action (from time tactics to visualizing networks, to action planning around big ideas).

The course will provide students with practical insight into how science is translated into policy and management, particularly in the context of Latin America. Lectures, discussion, and analytical exercises will explore what is required for fisheries science and policy to be effective. The course emphasizes the interdisciplinary nature of policy instruments, institutional arrangements, science diffusion, participatory monitoring, governance, co-management, and socio-economic considerations. Students will have opportunities to engage actual data from real fisheries, gaining familiarity with the complete process leading to decision-making in fisheries management and resource conservation. 

This course offers an in depth description of computer models and mathematical models commonly used in fisheries and conservation research and management, and that form the basis of fisheries stock assessments. Models will include age-structured modeling, area-based models, and surplus production models. A key component is teaching participants how to estimate parameters of interest to management by fitting models to data using sum of squares, likelihood based methods, and Bayesian methods. This objective is met by participants solving real-life problems using computer models in a mixture of lectures and computer labs. The first four days will be Excel-based and aimed at intermediate students. The last three days will be based on programming in the statistical programming language R, providing advanced techniques for spatial modeling and MPAs; simulation and estimation, catch status plots; Bayesian I and Bayesian II.