Kai Lorenzen will present the next University of Florida Faculty Senate Distinguished Professor lecture, where he will talk about the emerging future of integrative fisheries sciences.
Lorenzen, a UF distinguished professor in the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) School of Forest, Fisheries, and Geomatics Sciences, focuses on addressing complex fisheries management problems through interdisciplinary science.
His lecture, “The Making of Integrative Fisheries Science: From Backwater Practice to Emerging Paradigm,” will be at 1 p.m. on Nov. 20 at the Reitz Union, in the Chamber Room on the ground floor, as well as online.
Integrative fisheries science is the practice of using cross-disciplinary approaches to support the management of fisheries, with the big-picture goal of producing fish more efficiently and sustainably to feed people and to support recreational fishing.
His lecture will focus on the past, present and future of fisheries, especially homing in on the complex and persistent challenges that fisheries face. He will discuss integrative fisheries science as a problem-focused field that works with people collaboratively to solve scientific problems.
“For the stakeholders who fish or manage fisheries, this strategy should make their lives better and their jobs simpler,” Lorenzen said.
He said the key to integrative fisheries science is getting researchers in both biological sciences and social sciences to look at problems with the same lens.
“It’s good to have different scientists looking at the same problem but if you truly integrate across disciplines, you end up with different perspectives and different insights,” he said. “The whole is more than the sum of its parts.”
He said his expertise began in the sleepy backwaters of the Mekong basin, where he researched fisheries development. He began to understand how to connect science and management practices, a skill he carried with him throughout his career, eventually leading him to UF.
He joined the School of Forest, Fisheries, and Geomatics Sciences in 2010 as a professor of Integrative Fisheries Science and has an affiliation with Florida Sea Grant.
His talk will merge his personal experience with the paradigm he’s building, the evolving future of fisheries and why integrative practices should become the new normal for fisheries management.
“We don’t yet have an overarching framework and paradigm for integrative fisheries science, but we’re building it now,” he said. “To me, that’s the most fascinating thing.”
###
ABOUT UF/IFAS
The mission of the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) is to develop knowledge relevant to agricultural, human and natural resources and to make that knowledge available to sustain and enhance the quality of human life. With more than a dozen research facilities, 67 county Extension offices, and award-winning students and faculty in the UF College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, UF/IFAS brings science-based solutions to the state’s agricultural and natural resources industries, and all Florida residents.
0
