Sarah Abramson is a first year Bren MESM student, focusing on Marine and Coastal Resource Management. During her studies Sarah works as a Graduate Intern for the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS). She is also the Vice Chair of the Board of Directors for the Shoreline Preservation Fund, a fund that allocates grant monies to projects related to the UCSB coast. She received her BS in Marine and Freshwater Biology from The University of New Hampshire in May of 2000. Before enrolling the Bren School, Sarah worked as a naturalist for CruiseWest in the Sea of Cortez where she developed and presented interpretive programs about the marine life of Baja California for cruise guests. She has also worked as a naturalist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Sarah spent two years as an environmental educator at the Catalina Island Marine Institute helping students explore the marine world. She has taught sailing, kayaking, and snorkeling. In her spare time Sarah enjoys skiing, surfing, diving, rock-climbing, travel, and art. She has painted three murals, all of which are ocean themed and used for environmental education.

Christina Cairns was born in a small town near Sequoia National Park in California's Central Valley. Growing up in a farming community, I learned the importance of environmental stewardship and sustainable living to ensuring a healthy Earth for generations to come. After studying environmental policy and its ties to economics, politics and history as an International Relations major at Stanford University, I worked for several years on practical environmental issues before deciding to attend graduate school at U.C. Santa Barbara. At Bren, I am gaining a more scientific understanding of the ecological, economic, and political aspects to environmental management, specifically focusing on the application of conservation planning tools to promote effective marine resource management. I have always loved the water and enjoyed the ocean, thus it is with great delight that I begin a rewarding journey toward protecting such an amazing environment.

Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Katie DeLeuw stayed close to home throughout college, graduating in 2000 from Santa Clara University with a B.S. in Anthropology, an emphasis in Archeology, and a minor in Environmental Studies. After working on an archeology dig in Turkey and three years of intermittent world travel, Katie decided to return to California and pursue her passion for the environment through a graduate level program. Katie is currently completing her first year at the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at UCSB with a specialty in Coastal Marine Resources Management. Upon completion of her Master's degree, Katie hopes to work in Coastal and Marine Policy for an advocacy organization dedicated to protecting the world's coasts and oceans. In her free time, Katie enjoys music, reading, traveling, camping and hiking, SCUBA diving, snowboarding, and just about anything that gets her outside.

Sofia Hamrin is currently pursuing a Master's Degree in Environmental Science and Management, at the University of California in Santa Barbara. She received her B.S. in Environmental and Resource Economics from the University of New Hampshire at Durham in 2001. Her passion for the natural marine world has drawn her back to school to study coastal marine resources and management. She is specifically focusing on the use of Marine Protected Areas as a tool to facilitate cohesive and collaborative management decisions under the Marine Life Management Act of 1999. In her spare time she enjoys surfing, SCUBA diving, playing water polo, hiking, camping, and traveling.

After more than a decade creating Internet technologies at Netscape, Napster, and many others, Darren Hardy is a graduate student again at the Donald Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at the University of California at Santa Barbara. At Bren, I have found not only a natural extension of my ideals, ethics, and pragmatic values, but also a new world of rigorous analytical techniques, policy instruments, and management methodologies. As I learn more, I find my interests lie in applying the community-building aspects of Internet technologies to coastal policy and management issues as well as improving stakeholder involvement in policy design. Before moving to California, I grew up in Colorado where I earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in Computer Science from the University of Colorado at Boulder. And when I'm not working, I'm out exploring in the California sun and/or being creative with photography.

The California spiny lobster (Panulirus interruptus) is nocturnal, and emerges from rocky crevices at night to scavenge on sea urchins, small clams, mussels and worms. If startled, it will kick its large abdominal tails rapidly to swim away (backwards!) to safety. By day, only the tips of its spiny antennae are visible from the rocky reef crevices. Both lobsters and crabs are within the subphylum Crustacea of the phylum Arthropoda. It lacks the large pinching claws of its Maine lobster relatives.