Dr. Syma A. Ebbin is a Professor-in-Residence at the University of Connecticut and the Research Coordinator for Connecticut Sea Grant.  Affiliated with the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Maritime Studies Program, she teaches courses in environmental and marine science and policy at the UConn Avery Point campus.  

Dr. Ebbin is an interdisciplinary social scientist. Much of her work has examined participatory management approaches and the role of institutional structure on social and ecological outcomes in coastal and marine systems. Recent collaborative research includes an examination of ocean literacy and integration of the arts and humanities into ocean education efforts; space allocation conflicts in working waterfronts and social acceptance of cable landfalls associated with offshore wind energy development; examining challenges associated with the transition to a new blue economy in the Northeast; developing a Blue Heritage Trail highlighting Connecticut’s maritime and marine natural history.

Dr. Ebbin is a member and previously served as Chair of the Committee on Economics and Social Sciences for the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, is Associate Editor of the Marine and Coastal Fisheries journal and sits on the Board of Directors of the environmental organization Eating with the Ecosystem and the Southern New England Chapter of the American Fisheries Society. She previously worked with the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council, the Squaxin Island Indian tribe, Northwest Indian fisheries Commission and Makah Tribe in Washington state as a fisheries manager. She also fished commercially in southeast Alaska, as crew on salmon hand and power trollers and a halibut longliner, in central Alaska on a salmon set gillnet boat, and on the Kuskokwim River on a drift gillnet boat.  She has an extensive publication record, publishing in peer reviewed journals as well as popular media outlets. Syma had a post-doctoral appointment at Dartmouth College working on an international project “Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change”, obtained a PhD. and MS, MPhil, and MEM degrees in Environmental Management from Yale University, an MS in Fisheries Science from the University of Alaska, Juneau, and a BA in Biology from Williams College.