Marine Vertebrate Ecology Lab
Dr Maria Garcia Rojas
Maria is an environmental scientist with a PhD in spatial ecology from Deakin University. She has over a decade of experience investigating species responses to anthropogenic pressures and climate change across polar, temperate, and subtropical ecosystems. Her fieldwork spans more than 600 days at sea, studying marine megafauna including minke, humpback, and blue whales, and Peale’s and Commerson’s dolphins, as well as beluga whales and walrus in the Canadian Arctic. Maria has contributed to surveys on whale and dolphin distribution, genetic sampling, and passive acoustic monitoring, supporting conservation initiatives such as the establishment of Marine Protected Areas in the Falkland Islands, and providing information to inform the management of krill and krill predators in the Southern Ocean.
Beyond academia, she has worked in the non-profit sector as Earthwatch’s Field Operations Manager, leading citizen science programs to engage the public in conservation research, and has lectured at Deakin and Charles Darwin universities. She is passionate about bridging science, policy, and community engagement to foster ecological sustainability and inform decision-making for environmental protection.
Research
Maria’s research focuses on understanding how climate change and human activities influence marine megafauna and their habitats. She uses energetics, ecological and spatial modelling to identify vulnerable ecosystems, predict species responses to environmental variability, and inform conservation and management strategies. Her work integrates large-scale oceanographic processes, prey dynamics, and species behaviour to support evidence-based decision-making for marine conservation.