Dr. Ana K. Spalding is the Director of the Adrienne Arsht Community-Based Resilience Solutions Initiative and Staff Scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), and is affiliated with the School of Public Policy at Oregon State University (OSU). Dr. Spalding has an applied interdisciplinary social science background in economics, marine affairs and policy, and environmental studies; and approximately 20 years of applied experience in international development, conservation, and environmental consulting in Panama and the US. Broadly, her research group studies drivers of global change, impacts of that change on vulnerable coastal communities, and what we as a society can do to better respond to those changes and impacts. At STRI, she is advancing interdisciplinary approaches to resilience science and community-based solutions to pressing environmental problems through research, training, and engagement. Dr. Spalding is committed to interdisciplinarity and collaboration as a critical framework for co-creating innovative and just solutions to coupled social-environmental crises facing our oceans.