Team Bio

The team will be led by Ando Rabearisoa in collaboration with 1) Dr. Camille Gaynus, who is a marine ecologist and the Chief Science Officer at Black in Marine Science, and 2) Dr Rachel Meyer, who is an associate adjunct professor at the University of California Santa Cruz, and the Chief Scientific Officer of eDNA Explorer.

Ando Rabearisoa

I’m a conservationist working on marine ecosystem conservation. I specialize in studying the involvement of local communities in the design and implementation of marine conservation efforts through the system of Locally Managed Marine Areas in Madagascar. I’m currently a Ph.D. Student in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) with a Designated Emphasis in Coastal Science and Policy. I have a Master’s Degree in Environmental Economics from the University of Antananarivo, Madagascar. I worked for Conservation International for ten (10) years, where I was in charge of managing the Marine Conservation Program and the development of Marine Policy in Madagascar. I’m an award-winner with publications in top journals such as Nature, Science, or PNAS. I commit to finding integrated solutions to achieve a social development that promotes natural resources management and conservation. I’m a passionate practitioner and highly engaged researcher, convinced that an economic system respectful of social and conservation issues is the key solution for sustainable development in developing countries.

Rachel Meyer

Dr Rachel Meyer is an associate adjunct professor at the University of California Santa Cruz, and the Chief Scientific Officer of eDNA Explorer. She helped start and currently directs the CALeDNA program at the University of California that runs citizen and community science grassroots eDNA research projects and an eDNA service lab for the National Park Service and other practitioners. The eDNA Explorer is a company she spun out of a CALeDNA grant to make eDNA informatics accessible for everybody. She also runs workshops on science policy such as on bioethics and the Nagoya Protocol. Her interest in molecular ecology and biodiversity science stemmed from studying plant evolution and ethnoecology. She obtained her PhD from the City University of New York and New York Botanical Garden in 2012, did an NSF Plant Genome Postdoctoral Fellowship at the NYU Center for Genomics and Systems Biology, and then a AAAS Science and Technology based at NSF working on the Dimensions of Biodiversity program. She joined the UC Conservation Genomics Consortium as the Executive Director in 2016, which launched CALeDNA. Now at UCSC as a PI in the Paleogenomics Laboratory, she expanded CALeDNA to have international reach, with applications-focused projects in Rwanda and South Africa, focusing on using ancient DNA to guide rewilding and on integrating eDNA with remote sensing data to improve NASA biomonitoring from space.

Camille Gaynus

Currently, I am the Chief Science Officer at, Black in Marine Science (BIMS). Being able to combine my passion of the ocean without having to leave any aspects of my Blackness behind is a dream not afforded to many Black people. Through my position, have helped secure over $3+ million and currently manage programs, mainly in the Chesapeake Bay that link Black communities with their coastal communities while exposing them to environmental DNA (eDNA). I am also the PI on the Tidal Wave program, which brings Black scholars of all generations (high school to retirees) from all over the globe to ocean science conferences while providing them professional development skills to elevate their conservation works. Through my position at BIMS, I plan to continue expanding and amplifying the work and connection Black communities have with our oceans.

“Those who cannot forget the past are destined to remix it” -Evie Shockley