About Shailja

Shailja Gangrade (pronounced “SHELL-ja Gung-RAH-day”) is a biological oceanographer, marine plankton ecologist, and educator. She is currently a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Earth, Environmental & Planetary Sciences, and affiliate within the Institute at Brown for Environment & Society, at Brown University. She received her PhD in Oceanongraphy from Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) at UC San Diego in 2024. At SIO, Shailja was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and was advised by Prof. Peter Franks. She conducted much of her research within the California Current Ecosystem Long-Term Ecological Research program, and her dissertation investigated plankton patchiness at mesoscale fronts and filaments, with a focus on drivers, dynamics, and implications in the California Current System.

Shailja’s current research continues to focus on the physical and biological controls on plankton ecosytems across ocean margins (from coastal to offshore regions). Shailja conducts fieldwork in estuaries and open-ocean systems on boats and research vessels, in collaboration with the Brown University Equitable Climate Futures Initiative, the Ocean Margins Initiative, and NASA S-MODE. Through these collaborations, Shailja explores the composition of planktonic and microbial communities and the influence of precipitation on coastal and ocean ecosystems.

Shailja’s teaching is centered around marine ecosystem dynamics, but her interdiscplinary academic background stimulates her excitement to teach courses throughout the earth, environmental, and ocean sciences. In her teaching, Shailja prioritizes a student-centered environment that incorporates place-based learning, and she aims to foster a genuine sense of wonder and joy, coupled with a scientific dynamical mindset, in students.