By Charlotte Stevenson, January 4, 2021
These days, it’s not common to hear good news on the topic of plastic waste in the ocean. Today, though, we have great news. A new program, the Scripps-Rady Ocean Plastic Pollution Challenge begins January 12 with 29 incredibly talented, diverse, open-minded participants who are ready to completely rethink how we protect marine conservation and cultural areas from plastic pollution.
The participants are coming prepared for a real challenge, and are eager to be part of something impactful. “A complex challenge often requires a complex solution,” said Colin Duncan, Challenge participant and Product Development Lead at Forever Wild Seafood in Oregon.
The participants also bring a range of experience with plastic debris. Some have very little plastic experience, like quantitative analyst, Adam Mihalik, but who has built impressively impactful forecasting models for wind farm power generation, customer energy demand, and shipping fleets. Others live and breathe plastic waste, like Alex Ferron, Rise Above Plastics Leader with the Surfrider Foundation, and Cleo Ninja Stratmann, a Ph.D. candidate, studying water, environmental and urban systems in France.
“The competition for this program was really steep. We received almost 300 applications from 28 countries, 22 U.S. states and territories, and from a broad array of different fields of work and study,” said Stuart Sandin, Challenge Co-Leader and Professor and Director of the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation (CMBC) at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego. The Scripps-Rady Ocean Plastic Pollution Challenge is a partnership between the CMBC and the Center for Social Innovation and Impact (CSII) at the Rady School of Management, UC San Diego. “What is so exciting is that these 29 participants really understand what we are trying to do,” said Sandin.
Read the full blog here...