Maggie Poulos

Graduate Student Research Funding | 2025–2026 Academic Year

Exploring Women-Led Coastal Conservation and Livelihoods: Gendered Resource Access through Kenya’s Beach Management Units

This research examines the multidimensional role of Kenya’s women-led natural resource user groups in enhancing poverty alleviation, coastal conservation, and gender equity. Focusing on Beach Management Units (BMUs), Kenya’s village-level marine governance mechanism, the study examines how women-led BMU groups enhance women’s access to productive resources through collective action. Using a mixed-methods design grounded in access theory and feminist political ecology, the project will produce transdisciplinary qualitative and quantitative data from across several coastal counties. Alongside Coastal and Marine Resource Development (COMRED) and Technical University of Mombasa, this research aims to shed light on how inclusive and adaptive coastal governance enhances women’s resource access.

Graduate Student Research Funding | 2023–2024 Academic Year

Local Marine Conservation in Kenya and Tanzania: Community-based and Biocultural Approaches

Coastal communities in Kenya and Tanzania rely on localized ocean-based livelihood activities; however, this way of life is threatened by climate change, overfishing, ocean pollution, and other anthropogenic forces. While marine protective measures have been established in these coastal areas, there is little research about the perceived benefits that communities derive from them. Through exploratory field research surrounding the relationship between communities and their nearby marine conservation measures, locally managed marine areas in Kenya and Tanzania, Poulos will lay the groundwork for mixed methods and comparative research of the environmental, economic, and socio-cultural benefits of local marine conservation to adjacent communities.

Maggie Poulos, Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER)

Maggie (she/her) is a PhD student in the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER). Lying at the intersection of marine socioecology and adaptive ocean governance, she is drawn to the puzzle of how to capture an intangible value or worldview for marine protected area management. Maggie studies how biocultural approaches, including indicator co-development, are mechanisms for the inclusion of localized social and cultural values in marine conservation. Through a co-production of knowledge framework and participatory field research tools, Maggie aims to co-create applied research that makes marine policy a more diverse and equitable space for local and Indigenous communities. Before her time at Stanford, Maggie earned a Master of Public Policy from Duke University and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and International Studies from Macalester College. She is co-advised by Drs Larry Crowder and Krish Seetah. Outside of her studies, Maggie enjoys making ceramics, reading narrative nonfiction, and visiting family and friends on the East Coast.

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