UH Hilo’s Pacific Aquaculture and Coastal Resource Center immersed in research, restoration, extension, training
In addition to research and extension activity, the Pacific Aquaculture and Coastal Resource Center is also an important educational facility and includes the largest aquaculture workforce training program in the state.
By Samantha Dane/UH Hilo Stories.
If you take a trip down to Keaukaha from the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo campus, you’ll find the university’s Pacific Aquaculture and Coastal Resource Center at the bay’s edge. Twenty-seven years ago, the university converted the former county wastewater treatment plant to function as a marine and aquaculture research lab, taking advantage of the preexisting facilities on site.
At the center, home-based at the College of Agriculture, Forestry, and Natural Resource Management, university faculty conduct research, teach classes, and assist with aquaculture programs throughout the state and region. A major focus is with regional programs through extension that introduces new research-based strategies and technologies to aquaculture farmers.
Primary UH Hilo researchers with work based at the center include Professor of Aquaculture Maria Haws, who helped found the center in 2000 and specializes in invertebrates and coastal resource management; Professor of Marine Science Karla McDermid, whose area of expertise is in preserving regional species of limu (seaweed); Associate Professor of Aquaculture Chad Callan, whose focus is on commercial fish production; and Assistant Professor of Marine Science Steve Doo, who specializes in coral reefs.
“We don’t use a lot of fancy equipment,” says Haws. “We have a regular lab that we can do analyses in, but a lot of what we have here is we have tanks.”
The facility boasts several large tanks, an array of smaller tanks, and two wells, one for seawater and one for brackish water. Haws says the wells are “a really unique asset” because some species prefer brackish water over salt or vice versa, so it’s important to have both on hand.
Some of the most sophisticated equipment at the center is devoted to producing microalgae for many of the species being reared to eat. “Algae is the basis of the food chain in the marine ecosystem, so everything either eats algae or eats other organisms that eat algae,” Haws says. “It’s like cow ranching, you’re mostly growing the grass.”
All the activities at the center have elements of research, restoration, extension, and training. Let’s dive in.
The researchers
Maria Haws
Aquaculturist Maria Haws’s specialty is in marine invertebrates like clams, oysters, and sea cucumbers. In addition to their use as a farmable food source, Haws also studies restorative aquaculture, in which organisms can be used to address environmental issues.
“It’s a nature-based solution,” Haws says.
- Learn more about Prof. Haws’s research at the research website Keaohou.
For example, to combat increased micronutrients flooding into Hilo Bay, oysters are utilized for their ability to improve water quality, acting as filter feeders taking up contaminants within the water.
Increasing the natural population of species like oysters through aquaculture benefits the entire ecosystem by clearing out the water from pollutants while also providing local food production opportunities.
To learn more, read about this project done in 2022-2024 in collaboration with colleague Karla McDermid: Research and education to develop open-water restorative aquaculture in Hilo Bay.
Karla McDermid
Marine botanist Karla McDermid, who specializes in the study of limu, has established the Limu Ark at the Pacific Aquaculture and Coastal Resource Center. The facility is a key component of a long-term research and outreach program designed to serve a wide range of stakeholders with interest in seaweed.
“There are over 600 species of limu in Hawaiʻi,” says McDermid. “We need to preserve as many as we can for future research, education, and restoration.”
- Learn more about Limu Ark (Feb. 27, 2025, UH Hilo Stories)
With funding from the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, McDermid and Haws, with support from a team of student researchers, have established over 40 species of native marine macroalgae in the Limu Ark culture collection.
Chad Callan
Aquaculturist Chad Callan is developing sustainable rearing methods for coral reef fishes not commercially available in the aquaculture trade. He hopes his research into new rearing methods for Hawaiian reef fish will continue to have positive impacts on the aquarium trade and local fishing industries while also protecting marine resources.
- Learn more about Chad Callan’s research (Feb. 27, 2026, UH Hilo Stories)
Usually, these fish are taken from the wild, but developing commercially viable methods of raising fish lessens the strain on wild-caught fish populations and the coral reefs they support. Many of these fish have not been studied in an aquaculturing context before, so little is known on how to properly rear them in a lab or commercial context.
“I hope to rectify this through research and improve commercial fish production for the aquarium trade,” says Callan, whose prior work produced a successful feeding protocol for yellow tang, one of the most popular marine aquarium fish.
Steve Doo
One of marine scientist Steve Doo’s areas of research is on coral reef ecology and physiology. He’s now head of the aquaculture center’s Coral Nursery, a project with strong connections to the local Keaukaha community.
The coral nursery has three main facilities: a lab with 21 flow-through tanks, an invertebrate pool, and four horse troughs used to house corals and run projects. UH Hilo students are eligible to volunteer at the nursery during the semester.
- Learn more about the coral nursery and its focus on community collaboration (Aug. 11, 2025, UH Hilo Stories)
- Learn more about Steve Doo’s research at his website
The coral nursery was established in 2018 by Matt Connelly, an education specialist and Marine Option Program staff coordinator at UH Hilo, who worked with MOP students to grow corals at the aquaculture center.
“When I started in 2024, I worked with Matt to expand the areas, and currently we have three areas where we quarantine, propagate, and grow corals,” explains Doo. “We also are able to manipulate seawater conditions to facilitate studies that look how corals are impacted by changing ocean temperature.”
Extension: Statewide, regional reach
A major focus at the center is statewide and regional reach through extension, meaning the introduction of new, research-based strategies and technologies to aquaculture farmers.
Haws says the extension programs are “a really important part of what we do. It’s not just research, but it’s research that’s applied. It targets an issue and it’s oriented towards practical solutions.”
This practice helps bridge the gap between research and the larger population, keeping the research informed and relevant based on community needs.
“We share as much of our findings as we can,” says Haws, noting each of the researchers at the center builds up knowledge from their own research, historical records, and feedback from stakeholders and groups in the community like fishpond stewards.
“There is lost knowledge that we’re trying to recuperate, but a lot of what we do is driven by what the people in the community want,” Haws says. “It’s not just what we want as researchers.”
This work ethic is instilled in the students who train at the center.
For example, the video below presents a 15-month-long research process on cultivation of the Hawaiian limu (seaweed) named limu lepe o Hina (Halymenia hawaiiana) that has the potential to boost commercial limu production statewide. The award-winning project, conducted by two of Prof. McDermid’s students earned national recognition by the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, Colorado, during the summer of 2025.
Training: Students learn the trade through work, research, internships at the center
In addition to the research and extension activity, the Pacific Aquaculture and Coastal Resource Center is also an important educational facility and includes the largest aquaculture workforce training program in the state.
“Hundreds of students have learning opportunities here every year,” says Haws. “We wouldn’t be able to have an aquaculture program without this site,” says Haws.
The center hosts marine science and aquaculture courses for students to learn more about the processes. It’s also home to many student workers and researchers who work there full and part-time. “You can get experience with the full range of species and systems,” says Haws.
Students work with everything from marine or freshwater fish to shellfish and sea cucumbers, developing important animal research and food production skills.
“It gives them a good, solid training so as soon as they graduate, they can find good jobs,” says Haws. Graduates have found success working aquaculture jobs around the state and even the world, going into managerial positions, aquaculture companies, schools, and nonprofits straight out of graduation.
Aside from hired students, the center also takes interns and students working on theses or graduate program work at UH Hilo, such as students in the university’s tropical conservation biology and environmental science program.
The funding to support student research and pay these students comes from a mix of donations from the UH Foundation and the money they earn themselves from aquaculture production. It’s hard work at the center, like a real job. Haws says it prepares students for real work post-graduation. Any profit from selling what’s grown at the center goes back to their own funding and pay.
“A living laboratory”
Haws says aquaculture is the future in Hawaiʻi, starting with UH Hilo’s Pacific Aquaculture and Coastal Resource Center.
“In the whole world, there’s nowhere else that any regular person, including students, can just walk in and get experience with all of these unique species and facilities,” she says.
For Haws, the entire facility is a “living laboratory,” dedicated to serving Hawaiʻi and the region’s aquaculture needs.
Story by Samantha Dane, a biology major at UH Hilo.
Susan Enright, public information specialist for the Office of the Chancellor and editor of UH Hilo Stories, contributed.
