COBALT Fellows & Dive Control Board
The AMAZING COBALT Fellows of 2025/26
Our COBALT Fellows are a global cohort of motivated and diverse individuals with wide ranging experience including environmental sciences, geographic information systems software, public health, sustainability and social sciences. They will be completing their fellowship from June 2025-May 2026.
Haley Fitzpatrick, COBALT Associate Director
Bioregion: Greater Portland & Casco Bay Bioregion, Gulf of Maine, USA
Haley was trained as an architect and worked at Renzo Piano Building Workshop in Genova, Italy from 2016-2020. At the same time, she also started volunteering at the MonViso Institute in Italy. She recently completed her PhD at The Oslo School of Architecture and Design in Norway. Her research includes exploring how a reflexive practice of systemic design can be used to broaden awareness and participation in co-designing regenerative futures of rural mountain communities. Haley works to facilitate and bring people together to share stories and critically reflect on the systems in which they are a part of. Haley’s primary working group will be Working Group #5: Bioregional Digital Twin Development and her role as “COBALT Associate Director”
What makes you excited to work in your chosen working group?
This area of Maine is close to home for me – I used to spend summers up and down the coast. While all the working groups sound fantastic, I am quite interested in Working Group #5- Bioregional Digital Twin Development and also believe this would fit well with my experience. I’ve been working at a bioregional scale with my PhD research in Systemic Design these past few years and see great potential in such a project like a digital twin. I believe I could contribute to the WG through both my experience as an architect and in my transdisciplinary research in place-based sustainability transformations and systemic design. I would be happy to see how my transdisciplinary experience might be able to help contribute to such an exciting project as a bioregional digital twin!
Allison Fogg, Marine Science Fellow
Bioregion: Greater Portland & Casco Bay Bioregion, Gulf of Maine, USA
Allison Fogg is a current graduate student at the University of Southern Maine, working in Dr. Lasley-Rasher’s Marine Ecology lab. She studies population dynamics and life history characteristics of the mysid, Neomysis americana, in the Damariscotta River Estuary. She’s interested in multiple forms of marine science like local regenerative seaweed farms and sustainable aquaculture. Allison’s primary working group will be Working Group #3: Marine Operations and Dive Safety.
What makes you excited to work in your chosen working group? I love marine science and scuba diving. My interests involve seaweed ecology, zooplankton population dynamics, regenerative kelp farms, and overall conservation efforts in the Gulf of Maine. I have experience doing field work in Casco Bay and I completed the AAUS scientific diving course in 2022.
Jack Hughes, Geospatial Fellow
Bioregion: Greater Portland & Casco Bay Bioregion, Gulf of Maine, USA
Jack is currently studying GCSEs in the UK including geography, agriculture and computer science. He interests include finding sustainable ways of living and regenerative practices. Jack’s primary working group will be Working Group #5: Bioregional Digital Twin Development.
What makes you excited to work in your chosen working group?
I’m interested in bioregional digital twins and would like to help with the work Zedaxis is doing. I am also interested in visiting this bioregion specifically. I have an interest and some experience in creating 3D interactive environments. My goal is to integrate this with learning more about bioregions and working on a bioregional digital twin.
Kristina Loring, Sound Artist Fellow
Bioregion: Greater Portland & Casco Bay Bioregion, Gulf of Maine, USA
Christina is an independent story editor, audio producer, and sound artist. She blends documentary-style interviews, field recordings, and fiction writing to foster connection, intimacy, and new emotional realms for listeners to explore. She spent four years as the Head of Audio for Dipsea. She was invited to the 2021 Sound Scene Festival to showcase her piece “Message in a Bottle,” (2021). She also created Ghost Arroyos for the Market Street Prototyping Festival in San Francisco, an installation where she collaborated with a landscape architect providing an auditory sanctuary amidst the hectic ambient city sounds of Market Street. Kristina’s primary working group will be Working Group #2: Arts and Culture of Seagrass meadows.
What makes you excited to work in your chosen working group?
My family has been working on the water for generations, whether building boats on Peaks Island, captaining or being a deck hand on the Casco Bayline ferries, working the Portland fire boat, or building ships during WW2 on the wharf. Now as a storyteller and sound artist, I want to continue to pay homage to and amplify the symbiotic relationship we can have with the ecology and natural world in the bodies of water of Portland through deep listening and creativity.
Matice Maino, Performance Art Fellow
Bioregion: Greater Portland & Casco Bay Bioregion, Gulf of Maine, USA
Matice is a 24-year-old musician and film maker with a deep love for the outdoors. He is a freelancer, but affiliates with Posey Moulton’s art world. Matice’s primary working group will be Working Group #2: Arts and Culture of Seagrass meadows.
What makes you excited to work in your chosen working group? I am relatively open to working in whichever group I am most needed. Being from the casco bay bioregion I am open to learning of a new place and ecosystem of time and place and have always been fascinating by the raw natural beauty of Iceland. I’ve always been fascinated by the interconnection between the arts and the unfolding of society, and in the case of bioregional elements, the story telling, and empathetic element are crucial in the growth and healing of these precious entities.
Denise Meslin, Geospatial/Data Fellow
Bioregion: Valle de Zaquencipá, Colombia
Denise is a 43-year-old Mexican French person. Today she works as Commercial Director in Cybersecurity for Latin America. She is working with Juliana on this project that involves the spiritual part that comes from her ancestors. Her primary working group will be Working Group #5: Bioregional Digital Twin Development.
What makes you excited to work in your chosen working group? I want to be part of this fellowship to learn more of this and all the territories. I am Mexican but I am focusing in Fractal Regeneration Project from Colombia as my social environmental practice and service. My entire professional career has been in technology, my passion is nature and everything it offers us, I find it very interesting to be able to combine both things and discover how we can do it.
Maria Nieto, Ecosystem Governance Fellow
Bioregion: Valle de Zaquencipá, Colombia
Maria is an industrial designer. She lives in Villa de Leyva and has known the territory since a child. Maria has experience in design, art, and education, and is excited to learn more about her chosen bioregion. Maria’s primary working group will be Working Group #2: Arts and Culture of Seagrass meadows.
What makes you excited to work in your chosen working group? My interest is to learn and know the bio region of Zaquencipa in environmental and cultural aspects from an environmental and social point of view.
Milena Rojas, Coordination/Logistics Fellow
Bioregion: Valle de Zaquencipá, Colombia
Milena is a mother who heads the family and comes from the countryside. She has been working with Juliana on Fractal Regeneration projects for more than 7 years and has learned to cultivate her leadership. Milena’s primary working group will be Working Group #1: Bioregional Systems Storytelling.
What makes you excited to work in your chosen working group?
I’m excited to learn from global processes and contribute to the local project. I also work with storytelling in the region so I think is where I can add more during my time with COBALT.
Peter J. Stocks, Marine Operations Fellow
Bioregion: Greater Portland & Casco Bay Bioregion, Gulf of Maine, USA
Peter has been working with Team Zostera for 9 months and has formal training is in law and economics. In past years he practiced in the corporate bankruptcy arena and taught as an adjunct lecturer at the University of Massachusetts. Recently Peter’s been involved in creating and managing ocean-born businesses including rope grown mussels and scallop aquaculture farms since 2009. He has also done some consulting for the World Wildlife Fund in the shellfish aquaculture space. Peter’s primary working group will be Working Group #5: Bioregional Digital Twin Development.
What makes you excited to work in your chosen working group?
While working as a paid consultant with the World Wildlife Fund, on a shellfish project in Casco Bay, I was directly involved in gathering data, creating outcome goals and using GIS mapping to locate a non- commercial science / research shellfish lease. The process and the end use of that tool was very interesting. I grew up in Maine and returned to the Casco Bay area approximately 18 years ago with my family. I’m very excited about the work COBALT and Team Zostera are undertaking and hope to make a contribution.
Minot Weld, Strategic Guidance Fellow
Bioregion: Greater Portland & Casco Bay Bioregion, Gulf of Maine, USA
Minot lives and works on the coast of Maine and has a keen interest in the revitalization of living systems. He works as a project finance consultant with Wivern Management, LLC. Minot has experience in private sector consulting, as well as economic development, sustainable agriculture, stakeholder and community engagement, industry and innovation, and more. Minot’s primary working group will be Working Group #6: Friendraising/Fundraising & Development.
What makes you excited to work in your chosen working group?
I work in project finance, and I am well networked in the region. This is where I live and work and where I have spent countless hours on the water.
Max Zahniser, Living Atlas Fellow
Bioregion: Greater Portland & Casco Bay Bioregion, Gulf of Maine, USA
Max’s core process is leans towards, “seeing how systems could work, and demonstrating that” as well as also noticing the connective tissue or places, cultures, society, and communities. Max is an amateur ecologist, a recovering architect, an unplanned educator, and is currently working to develop innovative approaches to “re-villaging” society through new technique and project development, many related to the built environment. Part of his work includes holding social justice within its integrity. Max’s primary working group will be Working Group #5: Bioregional Digital Twin Development.
What makes you excited to work in your chosen working group?
Other than my time with COBALT earlier this year, my strongest relationships are in Iceland, and I’m currently planning Regenerative EduTourism programs there, connected well with the university, as well as wilderness guides and experts. As a long time aspiring regenerative thinker and practitioner, I’ve been striving to re-integrate our fragmented societies back towards healthy villages. For many years I have included in that a belief, that so called IT / computer science / technological cybernetics may be a destined contribution of humanity. So I’ve been working in various ways on projects and products that are incredibly complimentary to the COBALT digital twin efforts, and could in fact merge, or at least become a symbiotic set of efforts.
Want to learn more about becoming a COBALT Fellow? Contact us to find out more!
COBALT DIVE CONTROL BOARD
The Dive Control Board is in charge of administrative oversight of the underwater research that COBALT leads – specifically through the initiative of Team Zostera that focuses on seagrass conservation/restoration in Casco Bay, Gulf of Maine. The Dive Control Board operates with a major emphasis on dive safety and serves as as a critical governance function ensure that all volunteer diving performed under the auspices of COBALT adheres to established training and safety standards for scientific diving. The local Dive Safety Officer (DSO) is Levi Robbins and reports to both the Executive Director of COBALT and to the Dive Safety Board because the DSO work ranges from overseeing dive administration forms to setting up onboarding dives for new divers. Most board members are skilled scientific divers and all play a role in making sure COBALT’s dive operations and underwater research are carried out safely and effectively.
Levi Robbins, Dive Safety Officer
Levi is the local Dive Safety Officer (DSO) for COBALT, Team Zostera and is responsible for ensuring the safe operation of all diving activities in collaboration with the Executive Director and administrative DSO including planning, implementing and administering a safe, fun and effective volunteer scientific diving program.
Developing and implementing dive safety programs involves several key steps, including establishing clear safety rules and procedures, providing comprehensive training, and ensuring proper equipment and emergency protocols. Levi provides remarkable leadership in all aspects of the dive program with a major focus to minimize risks and maximize the enjoyment of diving for all COBALT/Team Zostera participants.
Dan Bookham
Dan Bookham serves as Senior Vice President for Business Development and as a commercial insurance producer at Allen Insurance and Financial. He leads Allen’s Property & Casualty insurance divisions as well as heading business development efforts company wide. His areas of primarily focus are US-based marine, waterfront, processing, manufacturing, offshore, international, and cargo exposures.
Dan holds the Accredited Adviser in Insurance designation from the American Institute For Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters and is a member of the International Association of Maritime & Port Executives. He also serves as a founding board member of the New England Ocean Cluster, an ocean technology incubator, and on the advisory board of and as a contributor to The Journal of the North Atlantic & Arctic (jonaa.org). He is certified in Risk Management for Outdoor Programs by Viristar. Bookham – along with his wife, daughter, and two dogs- proudly calls Rockland home and in the fall of 2021 had the honor of being officially recognized by Maine Governor Janet Mills for his contributions to that community and the state at large.
Jarrett Byrnes
Jarrett serves as the chair of the Dive Control Board for UMass Dartmouth and researches the causes and consequences of complexity in nature. He is interested in how humans alter the diversity and interconnectedness of life on earth. Understanding how these changes alter the services that nature provides is a critical need as we watch ecosystem after ecosystem collapse. He studies these questions in the ocean because, let’s face it, the sheer number and diversity of species in the oceans is astounding.
Steve Broadhurst, Administrative DSO
Steve Broadhurst is the administrative Dive Saftey Officer for COBALT/Team Zostera and is the AAUS Dive Safety Officer at Duke University, University of North Carolina, North Carolina State University, and College of Charleston. Having worked in the dive industry for more than 30 years, Steve has extensive experience in scientific diving and underwater project management. He specializes in marine conservation and coral reef/artificial reef ecology. Steve is also a licensed United States Coast Guard Captain and has a background in boat building and marine construction.
Julie Footman
Julie Footman purchased Aqua Diving Academy in May of 1988. She has been the driving force to bring Aqua Diving Academy to be a full service scuba center as well as a dry suit repair facility. She has been teaching scuba since 1982.
Sydney Hay
Sydney Hay is a recent graduate of Northeastern University with a master’s degree in Marine Biology. She has a passion for food and environmental justice. She has a basic understanding of American food systems and has experience assisting communities in combating the aspects of food injustice that affect them. Her academic expertise is more rooted in marine science.
Glenn Page, Executive Director COBALT
As the Executive Director for COBALT, Glenn oversees the Dive Control Board. Previously, as the Director of Conservation at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, Glenn oversaw all dive activities and marine operations. For over 40 years, he has been working on creating pathways to place-based transformation of our coasts/oceans/watersheds that integrate numerous social and ecological issues, working at the interface of science, policy and practice. Learning how to “Navigate in the Anthropocene” as he is leading a team of interdisciplinary experts who bring innovation, evaluation and systems thinking to complex, messy, cross-scale, wicked challenges of our time.