Mia Strand (she/her) is an Ocean Nexus Postdoctoral Research Fellow based at Nelson Mandela University (Gqeberha, South Africa), in partnership with the One Ocean Hub. Her research focuses on cognitive justice in marine science, specifically looking into opportunities to re-imagine ocean literacies as a process that values and recognises a plurality of ocean knowledges.

Her PhD explored knowledge co-production processes using arts-based participatory research methods for more inclusive and equitable ocean governance processes, and she is continuously researching best practices for equitable and ethical transdisciplinarity for transformative ocean governance. She is a co-investigator with the Institute for Marine and Coastal Research and the Algoa Bay Project, exploring practical ways in which ocean management such as marine spatial planning and marine protected areas can become more participatory and inclusive of Indigenous and local communities. She has formerly worked in international development and NGO sectors with ocean conservation, youth engagement, gender and human rights projects, and her current research interests also include contextualising understandings of marine cultural heritage, arts-based participatory research, children’s rights to a healthy ocean, and equity dimensions of ocean governance.

At Ocean Nexus, Mia explores theoretical and practical opportunities to advance equity in knowledge co-production and children’s rights to a healthy ocean. Working with children and youth in South Africa, she investigates the embodied and place-based influence on children’s priorities for, understandings of and interests in a healthy ocean.

In her spare time, you can usually find Mia freediving in the Cape Town kelp forest or running in the mountains.