Join Shah Selbe, an engineer and conservation technologist, National Geographic Emerging Explorer and New England Aquarium Marine Conservation Action Grant grantee, for a free lecture, sponsored by the Lowell Institute.

We have seen great strides in establishing marine reserves to allow the health of our oceans to rebound. But these reserves risk being ineffective without smarter ways to protect them. The methods currently used tend to be expensive and rely almost entirely on the use of military resources (which tends to put it at a low priority.) Selbe works in identifying innovative approaches and technologies that can help. This includes the development of hardware (low-cost conservation drones, acoustic sensors, etc.) and data management solutions (smartphone apps, online databases, satellite imagery, etc.) He created MPA Guardian, a website and smartphone app to allow crowd-sourced protection of California’s marine protected area network. He is now working through a grant from National Geographic and Lindblad Expeditions to create low-cost drones to monitor Marine Protected Areas.