Melisa Uyar: Studying seafood and people
My name is Melisa Uyar and I am currently a PhD student in Ecology and Environmental Science at UMaine.
When I arrived at UMaine originally as a M.S. Economics student, my early coursework and research led me to applied projects exploring consumers and seafood. This was my first exposure to marine resource economics (if we are not counting my experience as a lifelong consumer of seafood). I have been working on research led by Professors Keith Evans and Caroline Noblet with my colleague Rafiul Ahmed, whose spotlight you saw last month! This work focuses on consumer preferences for seafood, barriers to at-home consumption, and connections to water quality perceptions of producing locations. We have presented this work at conferences including UMaine’s Blue Economy Summit.
This interdisciplinary work has allowed us to address these questions through studying the humans who interact with marine resources. Understanding consumer preferences is one way this can be done! Some of my further work has been about zooming into the decision-making processes behind seafood preferences. Specifically I am studying ways applied researchers can quantify and account for the difference between ignoring product characteristics and true preferences. As we understand more about the behavioral component of seafood consumption, we can ask more questions and design more applicable policy on a broader scale!
As I have progressed through UMaine, I have also taken courses in the School of Marine Sciences, including Climate Impacts on Marine Resources (SMS 598) and Fisheries Policy and Management (SMS 563). In SMS 563, we took a field trip to Moncton, NB to attend the US-Canada Lobster Town Meeting hosted by the UMaine Lobster Institute. This was a great opportunity to hear stakeholder perspectives on the lobster industry. This was another way to learn more about the connections of the many individuals in the food system (harvesters, policymakers, processors, consumers of Maine lobster rolls) to their marine environment. Understanding how they may adapt and respond to changes in environmental and economic conditions can help tell the full story.
I’ve learned from this experience so far that there are a lot of questions to be asked and answered in the world of seafood. It is a lens through which we can see the interaction of the natural environment and the people who use it. I am excited to continue my work in understanding the human dimensions of the seafood economy- in no small part by continuing to sample local seafood and enjoying Maine’s beautiful coastline!
