Martina is a Research associate at the Fish and Fisheries Lab at James Cook University. She is also working as a research assistant for Biopixel Ocean Foundation, focusing on innovative technologies to enhance methods in shark research. Martina is collaborating with software engineers and leading AI organizations to co-design a multi-species deep-learning model for photographic identification of shark and ray species. Alongside her work in AI, Martina has been experimenting with and fine-tuning remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), and comparing their performance with traditional methods like diver surveys (UVS), baited underwater video stations (BRUVS), and drumlines.

Martina’s happy place is in the field, searching, observing, and following sharks and rays. Over the past eight years, she has gathered unforgettable memories and invaluable skills through her fieldwork experiences. She has deployed hundreds of BRUVs in marine protected areas in Fiji, spent nights longline fishing for baby sharks in Fijian rivers, photo-IDed great white sharks in South Africa, completed thousands of hours of dive surveys on the Great Barrier Reef, tagged sharks along Australia’s coast, and established a research breeding colony for epaulette sharks, performing all sorts of physiological assessments. More recently, she has become an ROV driver, using this technology to search for sharks and rays at night and in deep waters. 

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While Martina is fascinated by the creativity and problem-solving nature of new tech applications, her interests extend across fisheries science, species conservation, ocean governance, and the social science dimensions of shark conservation.