Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sea Grant

Social scientists work in a wide variety of marine-related fields focusing on such areas as commercial and recreational fishing, coastal zone management, marine resources management, and environmental change. Policy, economics, and social impact assessment are just a few of their their topics of interest.



Some social scientists are housed in academic institutions in various departments, while others work in consulting firms or government agencies. Recently, dedicated funding has been offered for social science research (e.g., by the National Office of Sea Grant) and diverse social science articles have been published in peer-reviewed journals. Furthermore, social scientists have increasingly been invited to participate in interdisciplinary research projects. Nevertheless, perhaps because of their diverse areas of expertise, titles, and work locations, identifying social scientists is not always easy or straight-forward.



Consequently, here at MIT Sea Grant, we decided to create a directory of social scientists. We anticipated that this directory would be very valuable for scholars seeking expertise in other fields for interdisciplinary projects; for journals interested in identifying peer reviewers; for graduate students who need mentors or outside committee members; and for managers who have issues that would benefit from addressing social-cultural factors or other aspects of human dimensions.