(Honolulu, HI)—The NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and National Sea Grant College Program have selected Leon Tran, a PhD candidate at the Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, as one of five 2025 NMFS-Sea Grant Joint Fellows across the nation. 

Tran is representing the University of Hawai‘i Sea Grant College Program and joins four other fellows who are pursuing doctoral degrees at universities in Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Washington. Their research projects span a variety of topics related to modeling and managing systems of living marine resources and fisheries, as well as the economics of their conservation and management. 

Since 1999, this fellowship program has supported over 134 population dynamics fellows and 42 marine resource economics fellows. Fellows conduct their research under the guidance of university advisors and NOAA Fisheries scientists and participate in an annual research symposium, receive professional development, and network with professionals in the field.

Under the guidance of Drs. Jacob Johansen, Erik Franklin, Tye Kindinger, and Lisa McManus, Hawaiʻi-based ecologists and fisheries scientists, Tran is developing a tool to forecast how future changes impact habitat suitability for important subsistence fisheries. By integrating laboratory studies on the metabolism of the convict tang (manini) and day octopus (heʻe mauli) with computer-based habitat models, he is exploring where these species can thrive across the Pacific. As coral reefs change under local and global pressures, this work helps reveal how animal physiology shapes where it can live, providing essential insight into how coral reef ecosystems can shift in the future.

Tran said “I’m honored to be selected for such an exciting opportunity and contribute to the program’s legacy of conserving our oceans. Through the fellowship, I’ll be able to move my experimental work in the lab into the conservation sphere, and help me advance my career as a marine conservation biologist and ocean steward.”  

Former NMFS-Sea Grant Joint Fellows have gone on to serve in key roles within NOAA Fisheries, other agencies, academic institutions, and fishery management councils, making substantial contributions to the management and conservation of marine ecosystems. The increasing demand for stock assessments and economic analyses drives the need for scientists with specialized quantitative skills, highlighting the need for and importance of this prestigious fellowship.