Founder Story
Dr. Christine A. Ward-Paige, Founder
Hello!
I’m the founder, funder, and creator of eOceans®.
I’m a professional scientist (PhD, MSc, BSc), a mom, and a foster parent to more than 50 dogs. I’ve planted over 450,000 trees, logged more than 700 hours of scientific diving, and led large-scale participatory science research around the world. My work has produced some of the most highly cited papers in my field and helped influence international policy.
And that’s exactly where the problem became impossible for me to ignore.
Every study and every paper took years — sometimes decades — to complete. Not because the science was slow, but because the systems I was stuck using were. Data had to be cleaned, stitched together across spreadsheets, many R scripts, GIS, and reporting tools, then translated again for decision-makers.
One project cost the client $700,000 and took us three years to complete. We were evaluating time-area closures — a conservation strategy meant to protect and restore cod populations in Atlantic Canada. But, those conservation strategies had never been working. This got me thinking, and worrying, about all the other policies that are being put in place. If we never evaluated them, then how do we know they are working?
That pace simply doesn’t work in a world where ecosystems, economies, and policies are changing in real time.
I saw an urgent need for a faster, easier, more cost-effective, and more transparent way to turn observations into insight — without requiring teams to rebuild the same technical workflows over and over again.
So I paused my own research to invent, design, and build eOceans.
I initially built it just for me and my research — the way big consulting firms build their proprietary systems. Then, I thought, why not let anyone use it for a subscription. It would save all research teams from having to build their own, and give us the necessary opportunity to work together at any spatial and temporal scale, on any issue, anywhere in the world.
Today, eOceans is the (patent-pending) automated, end-to-end system for data management, analysis, and reporting — designed to deliver decision-ready insights as data are collected.
I estimate it has the potential to save $291 billion in time and data on a global scale — not to mention being able to help direct policies and investments toward outcomes that actually make a difference, not just ones with good marketing.
My research path
During my MSc, I discovered that sewage pollution was quietly degrading coral reefs. The traditional thinking was that dilution would solve the problem, but the ecology and chemistry of the reefs showed otherwise.
Nutrients from human sewage were too diluted to detect in the water, but corals and sponges absorbed them — recording the pollution over time. More nutrients meant fewer corals and more boring sponges—weakening the reefs and making them vulnerable to storms, algae, and destructive species. It was a wake-up call. But, the managers didn’t believe it and didn’t act. Reefs in the Florida Keys continued to decline.
For my PhD and post-docs, I turned my focus to sharks and rays, evaluating the potential of crowdsourced data from local experts to track populations. I built global participatory science projects, including eShark, eManta, and the Great Fiji Shark Count, and watched as divers, fishers, and ocean lovers flooded in with data. The results were incredible—faster, inclusive, and more powerful than anything I had done before. But it wasn’t enough. These projects were still isolated, and the insights were still out of date and locked in reports that don’t update.
A bigger vision
Then, in 2013, while on my first maternity leave, I had an idea: What if we built an app to track sharks and rays in real time? But then I asked myself, “Why stop at sharks and rays? What if we could track all species, their health, the environment, and human activities—because everything is connected?”
And then another question: “Why just build this just for my own research? What if we built a platform that could power all research—any project, any organization, anywhere in the world?” Mine and yours.
That idea became eOceans—a real-time, collaborative platform designed to accelerate science, unlock hidden patterns, and support better decisions for ocean management and conservation. Today, its estimated to have the potential to unlock $291 billion in time and data for scientists, researchers, governments, investors, businesses, tourism, and impact-driven organizations.
Ocean to all ecosystems
We demonstrated that eOceans could transform data science in ocean spaces, from sharks to threats, enabling faster discoveries and more effective decision-making. We also tested and had successful outcomes in lakes. We’re now expanding this method to all ecosystems—and we’re excited to see where the possibilities may lead.
The future of ecosystem science
eOceans isn’t just an app—it’s a revolution in how we work together to understand and protect our ecosystems. Science shouldn’t take years to inform decisions. Decisions should not be based on guesses. With the right tools, both can happen in an iterative, near real time, collaborative, transparent way.
No matter where you are, what project you’re working on, or what space you’re trying to understand and make decisions about—eOceans is built for you.
