Sydney Avena

Sydney Avena is a first-year M.S. student studying Atlantic sea scallop hatchery culture. Sydney obtained her B.S. in Marine Science from the University of Maine in 2021 and has been working with the Maine Aquaculture Innovation Center since then, with prior research focused on the social license to operate for aquaculture and on growout technology for juvenile Atlantic sea scallops. Currently, she works to “crack the shell” of sea scallop hatchery production. A lack of a steady, hatchery-sourced supply of seed is one of the barriers to expansion of the sea scallop aquaculture industry in Maine. Sydney is part of a collaborative effort between industry and academia to optimize the survival and growth of larval scallops, with an end goal of producing reliable and reproducible hatchery protocols.