Lydia O’Meara
Education: Ph.D. ’25, University of Greenwich UK
Cornell Faculty Mentor: Kathryn Fiorella, Veterinary College, Public + Ecosystem Health
External Adviser: David Mills, World Fish Center
Themes: Increasing Food Security, Advancing One Health
Health of Oceans and Humans: Integrated Methods to Monitor Marine Biodiversity and Food Security of Climate-vulnerable Groups Across Seasons
Biodiversity loss threatens food systems, the ecosystems that support them, and the vulnerable populations on the frontlines of marine degradation and climate change.
O’Meara seeks to leverage innovative technologies to integrate monitoring of marine ecosystems and climate change alongside food security in vulnerable coastal communities. She will recruit approximately 150 mother-child pairs from climate-vulnerable, fisheries-dependent communities in Timor-Leste, the small, island nation in Southeast Asia. She will collect data over a year, including self-reports of consumption of food from the ocean, tracked via participants’ voice recordings on mobile phones. She’ll also conduct bi-monthly surveys on dietary data, and merge that fish consumption data with high-frequency environmental datasets on fishing intensity and harvests. Findings will inform policy development to improve conservation efforts and food security.