Megan Kelso

Megan is a NatureNet Science Fellow at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability and The Nature Conservancy. She is a specialist in blue carbon, the carbon stored in coastal vegetated ecosystems such as salt marshes, seagrass beds, and mangroves. Her research explores effect of mangrove conversion to shrimp aquaculture on carbon storage and local food security in Indonesia. Megan works across the environment, health, and development sectors with the aim of producing research that both informs effective conservation and improves the wellbeing of local communities. Megan did her PhD at University of California, Davis, where she studied tradeoffs and synergies between carbon storage and other important wetland management goals such as invasive plant eradication and nutrient pollution mitigation in California salt marshes. Before graduate school, she led community-based wetland restoration projects for four years in San Francisco Bay and Point Reyes National Seashore.