Kaitlyn Nichols

Kaitlyn is from Sacramento, California where her first trip to the ocean at 16 ignited her love and curiosity for the ocean. In 2021 she attended her dream school, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, earning her BS in Marine Biology, and continued at UC San Diego to complete a Master of Advanced Studies in Climate Science and Policy. At Scripps, she studied marine heatwaves in the Southern California Bight and their impacts on California sea lions. In 2024, she worked with World Wildlife Fund (WWF), documenting legal changes to marine protected areas that increased human activity and helped launch the PADDDtracker.org version 3 dataset. Kaitlyn is also publishing research on the overlap between PADDD MPAs and offshore infrastructure. In her free time, she enjoys snorkeling the beaches of Washington, hiking, and exploring her creativity. She now supports the MPAtlas team, contributing to research and assessments that evaluate global MPAs, utilizing The MPA Guide framework.