Program on the Environment

I assisted Washington Sea Grant (WSG) with the development of the European Green Crab Monitoring Program – a citizen science program in which volunteers regularly survey their sites with the goal of detecting the arrival of an invasives species. Given the need to prioritize the quality of a volunteer’s experience, I was particularly interested in exploring what factors influence volunteer competency or volunteers’ ability to sample independently. Furthermore, I examined how volunteer competency addresses the remaining concerns within the field that relate to data quality and program sustainability, with the goal of enhancing the applicability of citizen science within policy.