Matt Navarro is a Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia, coordinating a research group focused on integrating environmental economics, social science, and ecology to tackle emerging marine management challenges. 

Matt has a Bachelor of Science (Marine Science) with First Class Honours and a PhD from the University of Western Australia. Since completing his PhD in 2019 Matt has worked as a post-doctoral research fellow on various projects with the National Environmental Sciences Program’s Marine and Coastal Hub, Parks Australia, WA Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development and the Department of Biodiversity Conservation and Attractions. 

Matt’s research draws on strong partnerships with Traditional Owner groups across south-west and north-west of Australia as well as professional networks of social scientists and economists through the UWA Centre for Environmental Economics and Policy, the Australian chapter of the Marine Social Sciences Network, and the Australasian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.

Matt’s research is highly applied and targeted towards marine management challenges. Matt is currently leading projects to understand the impacts of the proposed development of a container port in Cockburn Sound on recreational fishers, develop and implement rapid mapping tools to capture use and knowledge of proposed marine park areas, develop national standards for surveys of recreational users inside marine parks, investigate ways of integrating Local Ecological Knowledge into marine management and exploring Sea Country connections with Traditional Owners. 

Matt is also involved in projects to establish standard protocols for monitoring fish and habitat assemblages across Australia, Identify monitoring needs and best practices for emerging offshore wind energy developments, establish Australian social and economic benchmarks for offshore wind energy, and implement social marketing campaigns to promote sustainable recreational fishing practices.

Matt has previously worked on establishing a national benchmark for social and economic dimensions of the Commonwealth-managed Australian Marine Parks. This work is being applied to inform adaptive management of the Australian Marine Parks.

Matt is a Unit Coordinator for the Frontiers in Biology at UWA (550+ students). Matt has also been a Unit Coordinator in the masters level unit, Fisheries Management and Conservation. 

Matt is currently supervising 9 PhD students and has supervised 8 honours and masters students to completion.