Re-purposing Sargassum in the Caribbean
From Pesky to Practical: Rethinking Sargassum Seaweed in the Caribbean
About the Project
Our project aims to reduce the negative impact of Sargassum blooms using a new technology that offers an economical alternative to tourism-dependent and coastal communities in the Caribbean. Our project aims to improve the Sargassum value chain by enhancing downstream processes and developing a new product. Our strategy will include early satellite detection of the blooms, collecting and processing the seaweed biomass to extract alginate through the downscaling and adaptation of current industrial methods, and bioplastic production as an end-product.
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This situation challenges the envisioning and exploration of new potential uses for the Sargassum, such as raw materials or manufactured products.
Accumulation of Sargassum in Puerto Rico mangroves zone
Our objectives are:
● To identify the sites and timing of Sargassum blooms on Puerto Rican and Colombian shores with satellite tracking and in situ observations.
● To engage with local communities, including fishers and the tourism sector (hospitality and diving centers), in the clean-up and collection of sargassum seaweed.
● To develop an affordable and accessible technology that transforms Sargassum seaweed into raw materials (alginate) for manufacturing applications in local communities through a co-design approach.
● To produce a bioplastic end-product originated from the previously obtained raw material, the alginate.
● Education and outreach to local communities on the potential uses of this raw material for different applications.
Meet the team
Jennifer Gil
Pamela Silva Díaz
Laura Rodríguez
Carmela Isabel Nuñez Lendo
Santiago R. Said
Dr. Roy Armstrong
Catherin Euale
Jenniffer Pérez Pérez
Darimar Dávila Ortiz
Jared Rivera
Neri A. Schizas
Franeyshka Juarbe
Jennifer Gil
Jenny is an environmental scientist working with the microalgae of the Caribbean at the University of Puerto Rico. She is currently doing her Ph.D. in environmental science at the University of Puerto Rico with NASA PR-SCRIPT Fellowship. She loves macro and microalgae. She studies how microalgae can be used for wastewater in the ISS. She is a speaker for National Geographic Learning. She enjoys making materials with algae from soap to paper and now bioplastic.
She interned at the Smithsonian twice and was an AAAS Mass Media Science & Engineering Fellow who worked at CNN en Español. She was awarded the Fulbright-National Geographic Digital Storytelling Fellow, where she traveled to the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute facilities in Panama, collecting microalgae samples. She displayed an exhibit where visitors used their senses to discover the invisible world of microalgae. She studied interdisciplinary science at the University of Puerto Rico and completed her Master’s in environmental science at Florida International University.
Pamela Silva Díaz
Pamela Cristina Silva Díaz was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and completed her bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2012. She obtained her Master of Science in the same field at the University of Michigan in 2014. After working for two and a half years in the aerospace industry, she joined the Hurricane María humanitarian response team with Oxfam America in 2017, focusing on studying and addressing Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene challenges in rural communities of Puerto Rico. She currently leads social innovation projects through her business, PamLab Design and Engineering , where she provides engineering and product design services and facilitates participatory design and co-creation processes in community contexts.
As a National Geographic Early Career grantee, she is co-developing an electromechanical tool to automate soil sensing processes for the research and conservation of the Annona glabra species in the Punta Tuna coastal wetland in Maunabo, Puerto Rico. For this project, she has facilitated participatory design sessions with conservationists and citizen scientists, and is leading the development and prototyping of this collaboratively conceived technology.
Laura Rodríguez
Laura is a Colombian National Geographic Explorer and marine biologist based at La Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano and has a Masters in Conservation and Use of Biodiversity from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá. She studies the genetic connectivity of corals and marine ecology, testing the Deep Reef Refugia Hypothesis in the Colombian Caribbean, relating with benthic ecology and geomorphology. She has been involved in coral reproduction, restoration, and conservation projects. She led a red seaweed cultivation program in Old Providence in Colombia as an alternative income for local fishers’ communities. She participated in different marine ecology studies about benthic communities, sea cucumbers, and fisheries. She has worked in rural, freshwater, and marine zones with local communities and stakeholders in socio-ecological projects to improve their livelihoods, focusing on gender, traditional ecological knowledge, and sustainability.
Carmela Isabel Nuñez Lendo
She started her career assessing the environmental impact of pollutants on aquatic ecosystems and marine organisms. Witnessing an astonishing coral spawning event during a reef restoration project in the Bahamas was a turning point in her life, and since that moment she has dedicated herself to specialize and acquire cutting-edge techniques for conservation and restoration of coral reefs.
She has been a National Geographic Early Career Explorer since 2018 for a project held in French Polynesia about the implementation of active marine conservation strategies (propagation techniques and coral nurseries) to improve coral growth and increase the survival of corals. During her project, she was awarded the UTS President’s Scholarship and International Research Scholarship to undertake her Ph.D. at the University of Technology Sydney. InMarch 2021, she was invited to join the IUCN Coral Specialist Group to develop the new Red List of Threatened Species for the Indo-Pacific corals. Currently, she has joined an interdisciplinary project focused on coral reefs as the Principal Investigator, where she will embark on a 2-week expedition in the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument (Hawai’i, USA) on board the Exploration Vessel Nautilus.
Santiago R. Said
Santiago is a Colombian Lebanese bio-cultural project developer who considers human diversity and inclusion essential in nature conservation. In other words, conservation is like a canvas, and we should not paint it all the same color.
He has always believed we cannot talk about conservation and sustainability without talking about and engaging with society. As such, he is entirely in love with bio-cultural approaches, or methods towards conservation that require solid interdisciplinary approaches, where different disciplines bled to solve complex situations.
He started working with the Majé Emberá community of South-Eastern Panama in 2019. Along with the community's elders and a small international and multidisciplinary team of scientists, they are co-designing solutions that are embedded and responsive to the most pressing problems the community is facing. They are currently intertwining GIS and programming methodologies with community mapping storytelling and ethnobotanical knowledge to create highly idiosyncratic solutions that have the community's priorities at their center.
Apart from his NatGeo project, he is currently working with the Colombian Ministry of Education to develop disruptive interdisciplinary methodologies to provide rural and indigenous youth with the tools required to make their life projects a reality. He studied Biology and Microbiology at Colombia's Universidad de Los Andes. He recently finished his Master's in Natural Resource Management at McGill University and his GIS specialization from the University of California, Davies.
Dr. Roy Armstrong
Dr. Roy Armstrong was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico and is a professor and bio-optical oceanographer at the Department of Marine Sciences, University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez (UPRM). After finishing his Ph.D. in 1990 he spent four years at NASA’s Ames Research Center as a National Research Council postdoctoral fellow and a Research Associate working with hyperspectral remote sensing. Upon his return to Puerto Rico, with funding from NASA and NOAA, he established the Bi-optical Oceanography laboratory at UPRM. His research is highly interdisciplinary, being mainly concerned with water optics, airborne and satellite remote sensing, coral reef ecology and bio-optics, and the impacts of Sargassum on tropical coastal marine communities. Since 2002 he has been collaborating with engineers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) to study mesophotic coral reefs, which are present between 30 to 100+ meters deep, using an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). He has been appointed as Guest Investigator at WHOI, where he conducts summer research using underwater robotics. Dr. Armstrong has received several awards and distinctions from NASA, NOAA, and the Office of the President of the University of Puerto Rico.
Catherin Euale
Catherine is a textile artist, designer, and multimedia storyteller. She is driven by sustainability in an emerging fusion between the biotech and design industry. In her practice, she challenges the need to use materials and methods that are non-compatible with living systems.
Catherine's work centers around biomaterial research and design, digital fabrication, open-source wearable electronic technology, custom machines, and speculative future narratives and systems. She believes deepening and shifting our relationships with the material can raise awareness of our forgotten relationships with the non-human. Her work has been exhibited worldwide in environmental science and art expos such as Climanosco's Oceans on the Rise and MIT's BioSummit (3 years in a row). She is a global mentor for the BioDesign Challenge and has been awarded the Worth Partnership Project, Ro-guiltless Plastics Prize, and the Fashion Values Nature award by Kering and Vogue Business.
Jenniffer Pérez Pérez
Jenniffer Pérez Pérez is a marine biologist with interest in coastal ecosystems and ocean monitoring.
She is a fellow at NOAA’s Center for Earth System Sciences and Remote Sensing at the University of Puerto Rico, where she is pursuing a master’s degree in Biological Oceanography. Her research focuses on monitoring massive, seasonal Sargassum accumulation in the fringing mangrove ecosystem in southwestern Puerto Rico using in-situ and satellite observations.
Darimar Dávila Ortiz
My name is Darimar Dávila Ortiz. I’m from Bayamón, Puerto Rico. I’m an environmental scientist, diver, and adventuress. I’m currently doing a master's in Biological Oceanography at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez campus. My research involves using high-resolution satellite data to assess Sargassum impacts in shallow water seagrass beds and coral reefs.
Science is everything to me, every day there is something new to learn and new ideas to explore. Science helps to take better management decisions to protect our resources and our species. Living on an island I was always close to the ocean and nature, always wanting to know what I was looking at and why it was like that. Nature gives me peace and happiness and protecting it and studying it is my way of giving back.
Jared Rivera
Jared is a Chemistry student at the University of Puerto Rico of Rio Piedras Campus. He works on a project funded by NASA MIRO: PR-SPRInT named Photocatalytic Membranes for Wastewater Reclamation and Fouling Prevention. In his future goals he would like to pursue a Ph.D
Neri A. Schizas
Neri A. Schizas is a Mechanical Engineering student at the Inter American University of Puerto Rico, Bayamon campus. She has a special interest in sustainable engineering practices and enjoys community. She is participating in the NASA Minds 2022 design competition as part of the team from her university. She hopes to find innovative ways to help the world.
Franeyshka Juarbe
I am currently a senior at the University of Puerto Rico's Secondary School. I previously participated in the Sociedad de Ambiente Marino de Puerto Rico's Marine Internship. During that time, I was able to conduct research on the invasive seagrass species Halophila stipulacea and the displacement of the native species in the areas of Seven Seas Beach in Fajardo and El Escambrón Beach in San Juan (both located in Puerto Rico). After graduating, I will be studying for a Bachelor's Degree in Biology and another one in Chemistry at the University of Puerto Rico Río Piedras Campus. In the course of my undergraduate studies, I plan to participate in research programs within the neurological and marine sciences before pursuing graduate studies in the field of Medicine.
What is Sargassum
Sargassum is a brown algae also called gulfweed or sea holly. It is a pelagic seaweed, it grows floating offshore, and is usually found in warmer latitudes.
The Sargasso Sea
The Sargasso Sea has been known since the Spanish transatlantic maritime expeditions, firstly documented by Christopher Columbus.
It is located within the North Atlantic subtropical gyre. In recent years, the free-floating Sargassum has altered its natural course, washing up on the Caribbean and northwest Gulf of Mexico shores. Recently, they have created a new area located off the northeast of Brazil in a region called the North Equatorial Recirculation Region of the Atlantic Ocean.
Locations of pelagic Sargassum. Two regions where pelagic Sargassum is commonly found in abundance (northwest Gulf of Mexico and the Sargasso Sea) and a new area, the North Equatorial Recirculation Region (NERR).
The Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt
A recurrent Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt (GASB) has been observed in satellite imagery since 2011, extending from West Africa to the Gulf of Mexico. The GASB contains more than 20 million metric tons of Sargassum biomass.
The great Atlantic Sargassum belt (Wang et al. 2019)
Participatory design
Our main commitment to this project is to our partners and community members
All the objectives and associated activities of our project are strongly linked to the engagement of local communities, including fishing communities and the tourism sector (such as hotels, restaurants, and diving centers). This will include the collection of Sargassum off the shores, the co-design and implementation of the adapted alginate extraction technology, and the following bioplastic production.
