PhD Student
Education
MESM, Environmental Science & Management, UCSB Bren School
BS, Marine Science & Economics, Coastal Carolina University, South Carolina
Bio
Nathaniel Grimes is a first-year PhD Student pursuing the Economics and Environmental Science (EES) emphasis at Bren. He graduated summa cum laude from Coastal Carolina University in 2014 with a Bachelor of Science in Marine Science and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics. During his undergraduate career, Nathaniel conducted research supported by the Office of Naval Research on radar wave propagation in the marine boundary layer and wrote a separate thesis on the institutional economic structure of the shark fin market. Upon graduation, he worked as the Operations Manager at the Bimini Biological Field Station, a world-leading shark research facility in Miami, Florida. He remains involved with the institution and sits on their Board of Directors as the Treasurer.
His experience at the intersection of non-profit management and research lead him to broaden his interest to holistic ocean conservation and sustainable fisheries. Nathaniel enrolled in the Bren master’s program (MESM) to derive solution-orientated initiatives in fisheries. His master’s group project developed impact investment strategies to recover the South Pacific Hake (Merluccius gayi gayi) fishery in Chile. His team designed and modelled interventions that attempted to balance biological, economic, and financial gains across multiple stakeholder groups. As a PhD student, Nathaniel wants to continue to develop mechanisms and techniques that mobilize private capital to be injected into conservation plans. He also intends to study the decision-making process of natural resource users in order to determine how, why, and when the choose to illegally extract resources. Designing better policy aimed at supporting better economic incentives will improve future management that would otherwise be eroded by illegal activities.
Year Admitted
2018
Faculty Advisor
Chris Costello (Social Science Group)