A University of Victoria researcher and outspoken marine conservation advocate has just been named as the university’s newest Steacie Fellow.
Dr. Julia Baum is one of six university faculty members across Canada to be awarded a coveted 2018 E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
The fellowship honours “outstanding and highly promising faculty who are earning a strong international reputation for original research,” and includes a research grant of $250,000 over two years.
Baum’s research at UVic studies how fishing and climate change are impacting tropical coral reefs, the most diverse of marine ecosystems.
Saving the world, one reef at a time
Her work on Kiritimati Island (Christmas Island) in the equatorial Pacific attracted attention when the recent major El Niño event caused the worst heat stress ever recorded on the island’s corals, resulting in widespread bleaching and coral mortality.
According to the NOAA’s National Ocean Service, the U.S. lost half of its coral reefs in the Caribbean in one year due to a massive bleaching event in 2005. And the Great Barrier Reef in Australia has been put under significant stress in recent years due to the effects of global warming.
The data Baum has collected is helping researchers around the world evaluate the resilience of coral ecosystems to globally rising temperatures, and she plans to use the grant to expand her research at Kiritimati.
Since completing her PhD ten years ago, Baum has earned more than 20 fellowships and awards; published almost 50 peer-reviewed articles; and been cited more than 7,000 times. Her research on the effects of exploitation on sharks provided the first robust evidence that overfishing had a detrimental effect on worldwide shark populations.
“It’s an incredible honour,” says Baum of being awarded a Steacie Fellowship. “Coral reefs are one of the most sensitive ecosystems to climate change and the discoveries the scientific community makes in the next few years—along with the decisions that we make as a society about addressing climate change—are going to dictate if these ecosystems can persist throughout this century.”
“I’m incredibly grateful to NSERC for this support,” Baum says. “It enables me and my team to take our research to the next level and to push the boundaries of what’s known about coral reef resilience to climate change.”
