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Sea Grant-NCCOS Northeast Aquaculture Siting and Sustainability Workshop
Date: January 6, 2026 (in person)
Time: 9 am - 4 pm ET
Location: Portland, Maine (Holiday Inn by the Bay)
Sponsored by National Sea Grant College Program, NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS), Maryland Sea Grant, and Maine Sea Grant
Workshop Purpose and Objectives
The purpose of the Sea Grant-NCCOS Northeast Aquaculture Siting and Sustainability workshop is to build capacity and collaboration among the Sea Grant network, NCCOS, and other coastal-ocean groups in the Northeast working in, or impacted by, aquaculture to help advance sustainable aquaculture through conversations around the creation of digital tools for aquaculture. The main objectives of the workshop are to:
- Present and explore existing aquaculture siting tools and data resources
- Build an understanding among participants of diverse perspectives, knowledge, and expertise present at the workshop
- Introduce methods of co-creation in the context of aquaculture siting tools
- Identify ways to advance and improve:
- Existing and future aquaculture siting tools
- Utilization of co-creation to develop aquaculture siting tools
- Applicability of aquaculture siting tools for end users
- Delivery of aquaculture siting tools to end users
Workshop Details
The workshop will be held the day before the Northeast Aquaculture Conference and Exposition (NACE) at the Holiday Inn by the Bay in Portland, ME (88 Spring St, Portland, ME 04101). Workshop check-in opens at 8:30 am EST. The agenda and workshop session details can be found in the workshop briefing book. Hard copies of the briefing book will be available at the workshop.
Accommodations
Free parking is available at the hotel. At this time, the room block rate for the NACE is filled up. If you plan to stay Monday - Wednesday only, there is limited availability at the hotel. The Holiday Inn by the Bay is within walking distance to other hotel options.
For further questions, contact:
Maryland Sea Grant Aquaculture
mdsg-aquaculture@umd.edu
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Featured Fellow
Nina Santos
Nina Santos is a Ph.D. student at the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. For her dissertation, she is focused on small shrimp-like crustaceans called mysids – an understudied yet important part of many estuarine and coastal food webs.
Featured Research Project
Developing a habitat model for mysids, an important link in Chesapeake Bay food webs
Mysids are important mesozooplankton prey for many species of fish in Chesapeake Bay and are an important link in transferring energy from lower to upper trophic levels. Mysids also serve as biological vectors for benthic-pelagic coupling due to their diel vertical migration and omnivorous prey-switching behavior, which makes mysids important regulators of food web architecture. Despite their central role in coastal food webs, surprisingly little is known about mysid ecology and dynamics in Chesapeake Bay.
