Dr Ruben Venegas

PhD Student: Incorporating trans-national collaboration into marine spatial conservation prioritisation
I am originally from Costa Rica, where I did my BSc in Biology. After finishing my undergraduate degree, I worked for several years in a Sea Turtle Conservation project in the Caribbean coast of the country. I was also involved in environmental education activities and, together with other colleagues, started Keto Foundation, a Not-for-Profit Organisation that strives to do research which can better inform management decisions of coastal and marine areas of the country. Later, I obtained an MSc degree in Geo-information Science and Earth Observations in the Netherlands, which opened the doors to be involved as a GIS and remote sensing analyst in several projects in Costa Rica and South East Asia, both in marine and terrestrial environments. Through these experiences, I have become interested in spatial conservation prioritisation, which led me to start my PhD at The University of Queensland in November 2014.

Globally, there is a growing interest in multinational conservation initiatives in the marine environment. Thus through my PhD research, I would like to generate information that will help to better understand how incorporating trans-national collaboration into marine spatial conservation prioritisation could affect environmental decisions, as well as the benefits and limitations of doing so.