Nathan Fitzpatrick is a PhD student at the Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology in the Marine Ecological Theory Lab and a 2025 National Marine Fisheries Service-Sea Grant Fellow through the University of Hawaiʻi Sea Grant College Program. His proposed work, titled “Using a novel machine learning method to create an ecosystem-based model for Hawaiian reef fisheries and ecosystem management,” will apply a cutting-edge approach that combines machine learning with mechanistic modeling. The work will quantify the intricate relationships between reef fish populations and the benthic community, and how they might be altered by human impacts. In collaboration with the Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, he aims to demonstrate the applicability of knowledge-guided machine learning approaches to fisheries modeling. He will be mentored by his academic advisor, Dr. Lisa McManus, as well as NOAA mentor Dr. Devin Johnson at the Pacific Island Fisheries Science Center.

Originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, Nathan attended the University of Miami to pursue a BS in marine biology and computer science. As an undergraduate, he used his joint computational and marine science background to assist in the construction of a near-field simulation of the tsunami resulting from the 2022 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haʻapai eruption. Nathan’s PhD research focuses on the development and application of new ecology-focused machine learning models to predict regime shifts before they occur. In addition, he uses an array of modeling techniques to better understand ecological mechanisms that may contribute to the resilience of coral reef ecosystems and could potentially be leveraged to prevent regime shifts.