Dr. Gretchen Hofmann is aProfessor at UC Santa Barbara. As a marine biologist, her research focuses on the responses of marine species to future ocean change such as ocean acidification and ocean warming. Working in places as diverse as the coastal oceans of California and Antarctica, Dr. Hofmann and her lab group are trying to understand whether and how marine species can adapt to environmental change in the ocean. Dr. Hofmann has worked with her graduate students and postdocs on ocean change issues across 15 field seasons at McMurdo Station. Dr. Hofmann and her students are deeply committed to inclusion and diversity in academic research science. We work every day to make sure all voices matter, and are heard in the science space.
Dr. Hofmann is especially engaged with climate-facing research in California. Here, she is a co-PI on the Santa Barbara Coastal Long-term Ecological Research project (SBC LTER), a research group at UC Santa Barbara that explores the health of kelp forests. Her work in the SBC LTER examines three significant equations -whether kelp can create a refuge from future ocean acidification, do animals have the capacity to adapt to changing ocean pH and temperature, and the biological consequences of marine heat waves. Dr. Hofmann is also engaged increasing inclusion and diversity in research science and is the Director of a program on Ocean Global Change Biology, a project that brings undergraduates from around the country to experience research at UC Santa Barbara. Lastly, Dr. Hofmann contributes her expertise in climate science and coastal oceans to California as the Executive Co-Chair of the Science Advisory Team (OPC-SAT) for the California Ocean Protection Council. Her most current activity on the OPC-SAT is as the lead on a report regarding the climate resiliency of Marine Protected Areas on the California coast.