Michelle María Early Capistrán

Michelle María Early Capistrán is the 2024-2025 Postdoctoral Scholar at the Bill Lane Center for the American West and the Crowder Lab for Marine Ecology and Conservation at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. Her transdisciplinary research focuses on enhancing conservation practices through collaborative efforts with coastal communities and advancing the emerging field of social oceanography. Integrating local ecological knowledge and historical research with marine ecology, she seeks to improve conservation policy and outcomes by understanding human interactions with the ocean over broad time scales. Trained initially as a cultural anthropologist, she earned both an MS and a PhD in Marine Science and Limnology from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). She has worked closely with rural fishing communities in the Baja California peninsula, investigating long-term changes in the abundance and distribution of endangered and culturally significant green turtles (Chelonia mydas).