Matthew Savoca

Matthew Savoca is an ecosystem ecologist whose research focuses on anthropogenic change through the lens of marine predators. He completed his B.S. at Cornell University and his Ph.D. in Ecology at the University of California, Davis, where he studied why marine animals mistake plastic debris for prey items. More recently, Savoca has investigated how microplastics flow through pelagic food webs, using Monterey Bay, California as a model ecosystem to study these processes. Internationally, he participates in expert groups that harmonize methods to monitor plastics and other pollutants in marine systems. He leads a project for the UN Ocean Decade ICES-PICES initiative, whose primary objective is to identify global bioindicators of plastic ingestion, a crucial aspect in assessing the ecological impacts of plastic pollution. At CMSF, Savoca is leading a project to study how microplastics enter and flow through the Monterey Bay ecosystem.