Lab News & Views Archives - Leslie Lab: Marine Conservation Science

Oyster science and stories

Civil Eats recently featured Leslie Lab member Sarah Risley’s doctoral research on wild and farmed oysters. Read all about it here!

Joelle’s research journey

Leslie Lab member Joelle Kilchenmann shares the journey that brought her to UMaine and her interdisciplinary PhD research related to Maine’s lobster fishery.

Thanks to support from UMaine’s Mitchell Center, we are using arts-based methods like storytelling and creative writing to share knowledge and learn together in support of coastal community resilience. We have just launched a new phase of this project, focused on documenting oral histories of residents within the Damariscotta River estuary watershed. Learn more about […]

Voices of the Medomak

In mid July, several lab members had the good fortune to participate in a guided trip on the Medomak River estuary. Heather helped organize this event. An excerpt of the press release published August 14, 2025 in the Lincoln County News is below. To read the full release, please log onto the newspaper’s site or […]

Engaging in offshore wind development

We are delighted to share How to Engage in Offshore Wind Development: A Guide to Values, Questions, Perspectives, and Pathways Forward in Coastal Maine, with you. Download the Guide as a word document, or as a PDF. This guide is designed to support many different people – community members, developers, government agencies and nonprofit organizations […]

Community Science Update

Graduate students Sarah Risley (above) and Melissa Britsch (now at the Maine Coastal Program) led local knowledge research in the Damariscotta and Medomak River estuaries. This open-access study was just published in the international scientific journal Ambio. This was the first time the knowledge of shellfish harvesters and experts working within these estuaries was documented, […]

Damariscotta River, looking north from the bridge

Bringing Art and Science Together

We are launching a new project focused on bringing arts-based methods into coastal community resilience science and practice, thanks to support from UMaine’s Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions.

Congratulations, Dr. Jen Smith-Mayo!

Congratulations to Dr. Jennifer Smith-Mayo! Earlier this semester, Jen successfully defended her PhD dissertation entitled An Engaged Approach to Tracing How Practices of Articulation Shape Embodiment and Materiality in a Science-based Transdisciplinary Collaboration in partial fulfillment of her doctoral degree requirements for UMaine’s Graduate Program in Communication. Jen will be co-presenting research from her dissertation at the […]

Reflecting on ecosystem-based management

Last week, I participated in a symposium at the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) annual meeting in Boston, Massachusetts. This is an impressive scientific society, including more than 120,000 members from the US and 90 other countries around the world. I am particularly appreciative of AAAS as they hosted one of the […]

Heather reflects on science communication

Thanks to the National Environmental Education Foundation (NEEF) for including our work in this story on science communication: https://www.neefusa.org/story/environmental-education/why-science-communication-important