Kiva Oken

Background

Kiva Oken joined the NWFSC as a stock assessment scientist and research statistician in 2021. Prior to that, she was an assistant professor at UC Davis. She did postdoctoral research in the Ecosystem Science Program at NWFSC on bioeconomic modeling of cross-fishery participation and at Rutgers University on the impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on nearshore food webs. She holds a PhD in Quantitative Ecology & Resource Management at the University of Washington (2016) and a BA in math with a concentration (minor) in environmental studies from Carleton College (2010).

Current Research

Kiva’s research takes a variety of quantitative approaches, including data analysis, simulation, and mathematical models, to better understand complex ecological and socio-ecological processes that are relevant for the sustainable use and conservation of fisheries. She is especially interested in understanding connections across multiple populations, both ecological (e.g., predator-prey interactions, responses to shared environmental drivers or stressors) and socioeconomic (e.g., participation of harvesters in several fisheries), and developing ways to incorporate such connections into models and processes used in tactical fisheries management.