Dr. Ana Spalding is Director of the Adrienne Arsht Community-based Resilience Science Initiative at the Smithsonian. She is also Associate Professor of Marine and Coastal Policy at Oregon State University. She has a PhD in Environmental Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz, a MA in Marine Affairs and Policy from the University of Miami, and a BA in International Economics from the University of Richmond. She has published widely on the socio-environmental outcomes of lifestyle migration to Panama; on the linkages between land use and policy, property rights, and development; and, more broadly, on the evolution of marine policy and conservation in Panama and the United States. She is also fascinated by interdisciplinarity and collaboration as a critical framework for addressing global socio-environmental challenges. Her current research includes the study of adaptive capacity to ocean acidification in resource-dependent communities in California, and science-policy engagement related to ocean acidification on the West Coast of the United States. Globally, she studies the current state and future of Anthropocene ocean governance; as it relates to marine protected areas, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Blue Economy, and the role of the ocean in achieving climate and societal goals.