I joined the HPU College of Natural and Computational Sciences in January 2008, adding expertise in multi-variate statistics, spatial ecology, seabird ecology and the conservation of pelagic systems.

I was originally born in Spain, and completed a Bachelors of Science at UCSD and a Ph.D. at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. I worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the Duke University Marine Lab and was a visiting scholar at the University of Washington's School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences. In 2007, I was awarded a Pew Fellowship in Marine Conservation to work on the distributions of marine birds, turtles and mammals in the Alboran Sea, Western Mediterranean.

My research at HPU addresses two main questions: (i) how does oceanographic variability in time and space shape the distribution and community structure of pelagic vertebrates, and (ii) how do these habitat associations influence the efficacy of spatially-explicit management strategies for their conservation.

My lab's research on marine birds, turtles and mammals seeks to characterize the oceanographic habitats of these marine predators and their responses to changes in the local and regional oceanography.

Moreover the conservation applications of this research include identifying important habitats for the development of spatially-explicit protective measures (e.g., marine protected areas), highlighting potential threats on protected species from anthropogenic activities (e.g., overlap with high-seas fisheries), and using these far-raigng species as biological sensors of the incidence and magnitude of marine pollution impacts (e.g., plastic ingestion).  

In addition to research and teaching, I am involved in several collaborative marine conservation and resource management initiatives. Currently, I am participating in the following fora:

U.S. Marine Protected Areas Federal Advisory Committee

Marine Debris Working Group at NCEAS