Small islands do not mean small impact.  Three undergraduate students born and raised on Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands stood before a room of researchers, renowned scientists, and administrators and presented their work, which they hope will have a significant impact on the Mariana Islands and beyond. 

Dominic Torres, Ale’a Duenas and Angelie Denguines were all students participating in the University of Guam Center for Island Sustainability and Sea Grant’s Research and Environmental Education Fellowship (REEF). 

The group worked with the Micronesia Coral Reef Monitoring’s (MCRM) Data Portal, which is built to track the health of coral reefs across the region.  According to the program’s website, the MCRM is a regional program established under the Micronesia Challenge that partners with local agencies and institutions, providing standardized coral reef data, tools, and support to inform science-based management across Micronesia.

During the project, each student was assigned a different island to monitor.  They used AI on the Coral Net platform to help identify and analyze the site and its coral, including their abundance and overall health.    

The fellows monitored three different reefs across Yap and Kosrae, all of which showed signs of steady decline in coral populations. Water heating events in those areas are believed to be the reason for the decline.

According to Peter Houk, Ph.D., National Geographic project researcher and faculty at the UOG Marine Laboratory, who also served as the research lead for this fellowship project, monitoring of coral in the region has a lot of room to grow.  Houk says this kind of coral monitoring in the islands can be a key part of the plan to bring more climate justice cases to the region and support broader conservation efforts.

For Saipan-born Torres, the research he was able to do can contribute to larger benefits for the coral populations and ocean diversity around the Marianas. “I hope the fisheries take a look at [this],” said Torres. “This data can really help to either loosen or tighten certain regulations.” 

Denguines is from Guam and has never seen herself working in the coral space. She admitted that she was more interested in sea turtle and fisheries research, but that after working with coral and seeing the need for help in the research area, she sees herself doing more in that category of marine biology.  

“I feel a lot of joy. I’ve never been one to go out and do these types of things. Now, knowing that this can make a huge impact globally, I feel like I want people to know more about what’s going on in our world and not just the surface level,” Denguines explained.

Duenas is a student from the CNMI who has previously participated in STEM fellowships with the NSF’s INCLUDES SEAS Islands Alliance, Guam NSF EPSCoR and other capacity-building programs.  She believes this knowledge and data can help bring improvements and betterment to the ocean we share. 

“I think it’s good for the people to know more about their reefs, and kind of dive into the causes and effects, but also what’s going on now,” said Duenas. “It’s really eye-opening. It is one thing to go out and swim and just see it with your own eyes, but it’s another to look at the data and see it all on the graphs and compare it to each other and really make those connections.”

The UOG CIS and Sea Grant REEF program is ongoing and places undergraduates with mentors in the STEM research fields.  

Following their completion of the fellowship, all three students intend to complete their undergraduate studies and serve their islands and the region.  

While the impact that the program term will have on ongoing conservation efforts may be measurable, according to the fellows, the impacts the program can have for the STEM workforce in the region are endless.