Ryan OConnor

Bio

Ryan O’Connor is an Ocean Social Ecologist and current PhD Candidate in the Oceans Department, Environmental Behavioral Sciences Department, and the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program for the Environment and Resources (E-IPER) at Stanford University. Ryan’s research is based in Pacific Grove, CA and Baja California, Mexico, and focuses broadly on understanding how human societies interact with their local marine environments. His research employs an innovative blend of quantitative ecology and qualitative social science methods to elevate and highlight community voices and local ecological knowledge in ocean conservation. By understanding how a person's relationship to the ocean, personal history with nature, and social context shape individual perceptions of the marine environment, Ryan seeks to inform the co-production of sustainable ocean management programs. Ryan also teaches courses on human-ocean interaction, the history of the oceans, and ocean governance at Stanford and has supervised undergraduates on projects ranging from computer vision machine learning models for marine mammal monitoring to expert interviews of marine protected area officials. Ryan is also an Ethics in Society Fellow with the McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society at Stanford. Learn more at https://ryanoconnorresearch.weebly.com

Prior to his work at Stanford, Ryan served as an officer in the US Navy working on international logistics policy research and development. Ryan most recently worked as an environmental policy consultant and geospatial project manager for AECOM Technical Services, helping to administer the National Flood Insurance Program, leading multi-hazard mapping, policy analysis, and legislative affairs efforts in support of disaster and climate resilience across the United States.

Ryan earned his Bachelor's Degree in Environmental Science from the University of Virginia in 2017.