Catalina López-Sagástegui is a scientist!

Catalina López-Sagástegui is a marine biologist (a scientist who studies life in the ocean) who focuses on biodiversity conservation (meaning she uses science to find ways to protect the diversity of living things). She says about her research, "I work with scientists and fishermen to find ways to improve the way we study, fish, and protect our oceans. I help fishermen and other people in their communities get involved in science and encourage scientists to design their projects so that anyone can join and help collect data." She does her field work in the Gulf of California and the Pacific Coast of Mexico in places like San Felipe in Baja California and Golfo de Santa Clara in Sonora. Her office is at UC MEXUS, University of California in Riverside, California, but she does a lot of her research in the labs of scientists in the same communities where she does her field research, which allows her to work closely with the scientists and the local fishermen.

A scientist's job is to ask questions that we don't know the answers to and then work to find the answers through observation, experiments, and careful thinking. A scientific question that Catalina would like to answer is "We depend on the oceans for so many things and many people need healthy oceans for food and making a living. I would like to find a way in which we can harvest enough fish for people to eat and fishermen to make a living, while still having healthy and thriving marine communities."

You can learn more about Catalina's research and the scientists and fishermen she works with here.

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