
Meet The Team

Michaela Garland
is a Graduate Student in the Department of the Environment, Geography and Marine Sciences at Southern Connecticut State University. Michaela's research interests are focused on marine social science, sustainability, social justice, and the blue economy. Michaela is currently investigating the Long Island Sound's Blue Plan and the potential inclusion of just sustainabilities as well as the current and potential blue economy for the Long Island Sound region.

C. Patrick Heidkamp
is the Professor in, and Chair of, the Department of the Environment, Geography and Marine Sciences at Southern Connecticut State University in the United States and a visiting lecturer in the school of natural sciences and psychology at Liverpool John Moores University in the UK. He is the co‐director of the Connecticut State University System Center for Environmental Literacy and Sustainability Education and an affiliate of the Economic Rights Research Group at the University of Connecticut. He is an environmental, economic geographer with a research focus on sustainability transitions.

Celine Germond-Duret
is a Lecturer in Environmental Politics and Policy at Lancaster University, UK, specialised in international environmental politics and sustainability, global development, and North-South relations. Her specific expertise covers marine policy and blue economy, international climate politics and global inequalities, indigenous peoples, as well as discourse analysis. Her approach is framed within deconstructive and postcolonial approaches. Her current work aims at unraveling the interplay between the sea and sense of place and deconstructing the traditional narratives and resulting power structures surrounding the sea.

John Morrissey
is a lecturer in Geography at Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, Ireland. John’s research is focused on issues of sustainable development, particularly socio-technical transitions, low-carbon development, and challenges of a low carbon economy for urban and coastal communities. His work is informed by environmental, economic geography with a focus on socio-spatial differentiation of transition processes.
![Matthias harbour[3464]_edited_edited_edi](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/ebdd3a_650934d93cf04c808ba37a8f7391888a~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_195,h_201,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/Matthias%20harbour%5B3464%5D_edited_edited_edi.jpg)
Matthias
Kokorsch
is the director of the master’s program in Coastal Communities and Regional Development at the University Centre of the Westfjords in Ísafjörður, Iceland. Matthias holds a Ph.D. from the University of Iceland in Geography, where much of his research centered on two central themes embedded in the theoretical approaches of Adaptive Co-Management and Resilience: fisheries management and regional development. Having a unique focus on fishing villages and Icelandic coastal communities, much of Matthias’s research is based on community resilience, regional development, particularly in sparsely populated regions, structural changes of old-industrial areas, and resource management in combination with aspects of justice and decision-making processes.