Science

I ka wa ma mua ka wa ma hope

“The past is the key to the present”

How did the places that we know and love come to be the way that they are today? My work is motivated by my desire to understand how the past can serve as a key to understanding our ecological present and future, using multiple sources of information from multiple traditions to develop a holistic picture of life-environment interactions. My interdisciplinary training has spanned the fields of Earth Science (BS Geology & Geophysics, Yale University) and Evolutionary Biology (PhD Integrative Biology, UC Berkeley). In my undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral research, I have applied techniques from paleobiology, paleoceanography, geochemistry, conservation biology, and ecology to study how climate change and human impacts have historically affected marine ecosystems in the Pacific region.

I have secondary expertise in Indigenous Science and Technology Studies. This work combines influences from the “science of science” (Science and Technology Studies, Sociology of Science, and Philosophy of Science) with thinking from Indigenous Studies and my own Kanaka ʻŌiwi epistemological foundations to interrogate how minoritized communities are impacted by the process of research and examine how science’s legacies of racial discrimination have shaped research today. This work serves as another way of understanding how one of the places I love - the “ecosystem” of scientific research - has been shaped by the past, and how knowledge of its histories can play a role in (re)imagining its present and future as a space that embraces many worldviews in the pursuit of fundamental knowledge.

My past and current scientific projects are highlighted below. For a more detailed view, please see my CV.

Featured Projects

“Big Data” Paleontology

  • High-throughput imaging techniques to digitize fossil assemblages

  • Automated morphometrics to measure aspects of individual body size and shape from 2D and 3D images

  • Automated taxonomy, segmentation of “cryptic features” (e.g. chamber measurements, counts)

Publications: Hsiang et al. 2017, Kahanamoku et al. 2018, Elder et al. 2019, Kahanamoku et al. 2024; (figure right)

Grants in review:

  • John Templeton Foundation: “Modeling directionality across scales to predict evolution on a changing planet” (PI: Beckett Sterner, ASU; Co-Is: Sara Kahanamoku-Meyer, UHM; Gene Hunt, NMNH; Reed Cartwright, ASU; John Fricks, ASU).

Life history and energetics in the fossil record

  • Characterization of morphological traits to assess reproductive life history in microfossil taxa (e.g., asexual-sexual reproduction in benthic foraminifera)

  • Estimating population and community growth rates and biomass to infer energetic trends in fossil taxa

Publications: Kahanamoku 2022 (Dissertation; figure right); Kahanamoku-Meyer et al. (in revision); additional publications in prep

Ongoing collaborations:

  • Climate-induced body size changes in the California Current: led by Curtis Deutsch (Princeton). Calibration of a trait-based physiological model for benthic foraminifera using population body size data from Kahanamoku-Meyer et al. 2024. Deutsch, Kahanamoku-Meyer, Finnegan in prep.

  • Examining reproductive variation across environmental gradients using sediment cores from oxygen minimum zones in the CA borderlands (collaboration with Hannah Palmer, UC Davis; Heather McCandless, UC Riverside).

Figure left: Timescales of biological observations and modes of global change. Figure from Kahanamoku-Meyer 2022 (Dissertation).

Figure right: Linking functional diversity, environment, and human dynamics across scales of biological organization. Figure from NSF BoCP proposal by Cramer, Kahanamoku-Meyer, Donovan, and Leonard-Pingel to assess coral reef functional diversity and resilience in Moʻorea, Māʻohi Nui (French Polynesia).

Bridging ecology and evolution with “invisible timescale” records

  • Characterization of marine ecosystem trends through time using microfossils from sediment cores that span millennia and have decadal to centennial temporal resolution (Figure left, from Kahanamoku 2022 Dissertation)

  • Linking individual, population, and community dynamics through functional morphology (Figure right; from NSF BoCP submission with Cramer, Donovan, Leonard-Pingel)

  • Building historical baselines and capturing impacts of socioecological systems change through multi-proxy records

Publications: Kahanamoku 2022 (Dissertation); Kahanamoku et al. 2024 (in revision); additional papers in prep

Current Funding:

  • NOAA-ORC “Using Sedimentary archives to illuminate the impacts of a colonial-era land-use change on a Pacific Island reef ecosystem in Kāneʻohe, Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi” (PI: Sara Kahanamoku-Meyer, co-I Jeneva Wright).

  • University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Sciences and Technology: “Developing Hawaiʻi and Pacific Island archives for conservation paleobiology” (PI: Sara Kahanamoku-Meyer).

Grants in review:

  • NSF-BoCP: “Collaborative Research: BoCP-Implementation: Millennial-scale trends in functional diversity and resilience of coral reefs in response to local and global change” (Lead Institution: ASU; ASU PI: Katie Cramer; UHM PI: Sara Kahanamoku-Meyer, Co-I: Mary Donovan; OSU PI: Jill Leonard-Pingel).

Figure left: A combination of diverse data sources allows reconstruction of biological and environmental time series that span a wide array of timescales and vary markedly in their resolution. Because of limitations in temporal resolution and span inherent in each of these sources of data, integrative approaches have the greatest potential to provide long-term quantitative, qualitative, and holistic records of ecosystem states from deep time through the present day. (Figure from Finnegan et al. 2024, Ann. Rev. Mar. Sci)

Figure right: The sun sets on a coring expedition at Palmyra, Spring 2024. These cores are part of a USGS-USFWS project to reconstruct ecosystem histories for Palmyra atoll over the past millennium and inform USFWS management of the atoll. Photo from Miriam Jones, USGS.

Conservation Paleobiology in the Pacific Islands

  • Investigating how rapid human-driven environmental changes over the past millennium shapes ecosystem resilience in the Pacific Islands

  • Apply findings from “invisible timescale” paleontology to develop sensitive microfossil indicators of ecosystem change

  • Using paleontological techniques and information from Indigenous, traditional, and local knowledge systems, develop long-term records of ecosystem characteristics that promote or hinder resilience

Publications: Finnegan et al. 2024

Ongoing Collaborations:

  • USGS-USFWS Science Support Partnership Program: Developing paleoecological records to support integrated land-ocean management strategies in Pacific Islands Marine National Monuments, including the Pacific Remote Islands MNM, Papahānaumokuākea MNM, and National Wildlife Refuges in the main Hawaiian Islands. (Collaborators: David Wahl, Miriam Jones, USGS; Kelley Goodale, USFWS; Kauaʻoa Fraiola, formerly USFWS, now PI-CASC; David Beilman, UHM).

Current Funding:

  • NOAA-ORC “Using Sedimentary archives to illuminate the impacts of a colonial-era land-use change on a Pacific Island reef ecosystem in Kāneʻohe, Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi” (PI: Sara Kahanamoku-Meyer, co-I Jeneva Wright).

  • University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Sciences and Technology: “Developing Hawaiʻi and Pacific Island archives for conservation paleobiology” (PI: Sara Kahanamoku-Meyer).

Grants in review:

  • NSF-BoCP: “Collaborative Research: BoCP-Implementation: Millennial-scale trends in functional diversity and resilience of coral reefs in response to local and global change” (Lead Institution: ASU; ASU PI: Katie Cramer; UHM PI: Sara Kahanamoku-Meyer, Co-I: Mary Donovan; OSU PI: Jill Leonard-Pingel).

Additional Key Focus Areas

Barriers to and tools for equity in research

  • Characterization of racial disparities in funding rates at the National Science Foudnation:

    • Chen et al. (2022) found that racial disparities in funding rates at the National Science Foundation have persisted for over two decades, both NSF-wide and within disciplinary directorates. These trends undermine not only efforts to diversify STEM faculty and leadership, but also the integrity of scientific knowledge as a public good for all. This work was covered in various outlets such as Science Magazine and The New York Times and recognized by President Biden with an invitation to the White House for the CHIPS and Science Act signing ceremony.

  • Development of ethics guidance for field-based research, including the Kūlana Noiʻi best practices and the Geological Society of America ethics statement on geologic fieldwork (see Extension Work for more information)

Publications: Chen et al. 2022 (figure left), Kulana Noi’i Working Group 2021