Meet our team

Isobel Pearsall has a First Class degree in Pure and Applied Biology from Oxford University, a M.Sc. in Ecology from the Department of Biology at Dalhousie University, and a Ph.D. in Ecology from the Department of Plant Science, UBC. After her Ph.D. studies, she was a post-doctoral fellow in Ecosystem Management at the Pacific Biological Station, Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Nanaimo.

Dr. Pearsall was the Project Coordinator (Canada) for the Salish Sea Marine Survival Project (SSMSP), a transboundary $20M program set to address declines in Chinook, Coho and Steelhead in the Salish Sea (2014-2019). Over 60 organizations, representing diverse philosophies and encompassing most of the region’s fisheries and marine research and management complex, worked together on this massive transboundary effort. The Pacific Salmon Foundation and Long Live the Kings continue to work together to coordinate efforts in the Strait of Georgia and Puget Sound, respectively.

Isobel is currently the Director, Marine Science Programs, for the Pacific Salmon Foundation. Many of the programs in her portfolio were developed in response to the findings of the SSMSP; she currently oversees a major program on Nearshore and Estuarine Habitat Restoration, a number of large-scale Citizen Science programs for oceanographic, forage fish and salmon data collation; a major research program to assess bottlenecks to survival of Coho, Chinook and Steelhead in the Strait of Georgia, and development of PSF Educational Initiatives. Isobel is also Project Lead for the Strait of Georgia Data Centre, an online hub established in collaboration with the Institute of the Ocean and Fisheries, UBC. The Strait of Georgia Data Centre holds data for ecological, environmental and human use data for the Strait of Georgia.