Thew spends a lot of time thinking about kelp. From the incredible biodiversity of wild kelp beds to its phenomenal growth rates, kelp occupies a lot of his head-space. His studies and research have taken him from the giant kelp forests of California into the Arctic and throughout the North Atlantic. He is passionate about sustainable aquaculture and believes deeply in the importance of diversifying Maine’s working waterfronts. Among other adventures, prior to Atlantic Sea Farms, Thew spent 2 years at the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in East Boothbay, Maine, working as a postdoctoral fellow studying Maine’s kelp forest communities and how they have changed over the past three decades. He received his PhD at Université Laval (Québec , Canada) studying the ecological tipping points of sea urchins and kelp beds in the Northern Atlantic and his Masters from Moss Landing Marine Laboratories where he examined how two of the fastest growing kelps on the planet competed with each other. He also spent six seasons serving on a Smithsonian Institution’s research vessel while part of the Marine Ecosystems Lab under Dr Walter Adey. There he surveyed the underwater coastline from temperate Maine to the sub-arctic, collecting “climate archives” – long-lived coralline algae which can be used to infer temperature and salinity of our oceans going back several hundred years. Thew and his wife and daughter live in Freeport.
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