Skylar R. Bayer, Ph.D.

Skylar is a marine habitat resource specialist in the Alaska Regional Office. She is trained as a marine ecologist with expertise in shellfish population dynamics, invertebrate life history, fertilization ecology, extension work, and science communication. In the northeastern US, she has conducted applied research in collaboration both fishermen and aquaculturists on bivalve species. Prior to joining the Habitat Conservation Division, Skylar held a faculty position at Roger Williams University overseeing their Shellfish Program. In 2021 she studied Iceland scallop population dynamics as a Fulbright Scholar with Icelandic government scientists. She previously worked with NOAA as a NRC Postdoctoral Research Associate with the NMFS Milford Lab and as a Knauss Marine Policy Fellow in the U.S. Senate. She earned her Ph.D. in Marine Biology in 2017 from the University of Maine’s School of Marine Sciences, her M.Sc. from the MIT-WHOI Joint Program in Biological Oceanography in 2011, and her B.Sc. in Marine Biology from Brown University in 2008. She has worked with The Story Collider as a producer, a non-profit dedicated to science storytelling, since 2014.