Casey Benkwitt

Ocean Recovery Scientist
Marine
[email protected]

Casey is an Ocean Recovery Scientist on the California Oceans Team. She provides scientific and technical support and leadership for the recovery of an endangered kelp forest predator, the sunflower sea star.

Prior to joining TNC, Casey was a Senior Research Fellow at Lancaster University (UK), where she investigated how island restoration affects atoll ecosystems, with a focus on how seabird-provided nutrient connectivity influences coral reef ecology and resilience. Casey has also previously researched the population dynamics of fish in kelp forests, the behavior and ecological effects of invasive coral-reef fish, and the feeding habits of juvenile salmon. Casey has a B.A. in Environmental Studies and Sociology with a Biology minor from Bowdoin College, and a PhD in Zoology with a Statistics minor from Oregon State University.

What Casey is working on now:

Casey is currently coordinating with partners to accelerate species recovery efforts for the sunflower sea star. Projects include identifying sources of resilience to the disease underlying sunflower sea star population declines, mapping spatiotemporal dynamics of the disease-causing pathogen, and developing a research needs report to guide experimental outplanting.