A PhD candidate at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology was selected as one of five 2025 NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS)–Sea Grant Joint Fellows across the U.S. Leon Tran is representing the UH Sea Grant College Program and joins four other fellows who are pursuing doctoral degrees at universities in other states.
The research projects span topics related to modeling and managing systems of living marine resources and fisheries, as well as the economics of their conservation and management.
“I’m honored to be selected for such an exciting opportunity and to contribute to the program’s legacy of conserving our oceans,” said Tran. “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.”
Under the guidance of Hawaiʻi–based fisheries researchers Jacob Johansen, Erik Franklin, Tye Kindinger and Lisa McManus, 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.
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.
Since 1999, this fellowship program has supported more than 134 population dynamics fellows and 42 marine resource economics fellows.
