Postdoctoral Fellow.
Caroline Ferguson Irlanda is a community-engaged researcher and teacher exploring solutions to equity and justice challenges in coastal systems. Her interdisciplinary dissertation examined how the commodification of marine resources has impacted social inequities, environmental degradation, food sovereignty, and cultural heritage in Palau. There, she worked closely with fishers--especially women--to restore and manage invertebrate fisheries. More recently, she has published on environmental justice and research ethics. In 2023, she created "Surf & Turf: a seafood justice podcast", featuring voices of harvesters, activists, and researchers from across the U.S. highlighting economic, racial, gender, and environmental justice challenges in the U.S. seafood system. She is co-leading a collaboration of community-based researchers across the U.S. and its territories to investigate these challenges and identify local and national solutions. She is also closely mentoring Palauan high school students in their research and resistance to U.S. militarization of their island, through a course she co-teaches with local organization Ebiil Society, Decolonizing Environmental Social Science Research. She remains committed to work with existing partners and is enthusiastic about forming new relationships as a member of the Social Ecology Lab.