5/17/26: Jaclyn Mann, Reef Foundation SoCal Director, on the Kelp Monitoring Program

Topic: The Kelp Monitoring Program

Jaclyn will discuss Reef Check’s long-term kelp forest monitoring program. She'll detail the training and experience needed to become a volunteer diver and look at some of the ways in which data collected by our citizen scientists is used in the scientific community.

Speaker Bio:

Jaclyn grew up in Ventura, California where she discovered at a young age that she had an interest and a passion for studying marine biology. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences with a concentration in Marine Biology and Fisheries from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. Upon graduation, she was gifted her first scuba certification class which enabled her to explore the ocean from a whole new vantage point. Following undergrad, Jaclyn pursued her Master’s in Biological Sciences at California State University, Long Beach as a member of Dr. Bengt Allen’s community ecology lab where she studied changes in species interactions across stress gradients in the rocky intertidal. While studying for her degree, she continued to delve deeper into scuba diving and worked her way through PADI’s scuba certification courses until she became a PADI Instructor in 2014. Jaclyn started volunteering with Reef Check in 2022 and, right from the start, was drawn to the enthusiasm and dedication that Reef Check volunteers have for monitoring California’s kelp forests and rocky reefs. She has been Reef Check’s Southern California Regional Manager since September of 2023.