Another principal research question is the study of how structural characteristics of social networks affect the outcomes of management initiatives and collective action. Through joint projects Beatrice will also continue her work on issues related to small-scale fisheries, with particular focus on East Africa and theWestern Indian Ocean.
 
She received her PhD in Marine Ecotoxicology /Natural Resource Management at the Dept of Systems Ecology, Stockholm University in Sept 2006. The thesis Of Mangroves and Middlemen - A study of social and ecological linkages in a coastal community (pdf, 4 MB) had a transdisciplinary focus on the links and feedbacks between the social and ecological components of a small-scale fishery along the southern Kenyan coast, and Zanzibar.
 
Her PhD included three interlinked categories:

1) studies of the return of ecosystem functions in replanted mangroves with focus on the utilization of replanted mangroves by juvenile fish and shellfish as well as the recolonization of the restored areas by epibiotic communities;

2) valuation of ecological goods and services of natural and replanted mangroves as perceived by local communities, and;

3) an inventory of the local ecological knowledge (LEK) held by different groups of resource extractors in the area. LEK was linked to mapping of the social network associated with the communication of such knowledge, and issues of leadership and social capital were explored in light of problems of collective action for coastal resource management in the study area.
 
Between 2007- 2008 she held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for the Study of Institutional Diversity (CSID) at Arizona State University, funded by the Swedish Research Council (VR), and was affiliated to the lab run by Associate Professors Marco Janssen and Marty Anderies, and Prof Lin Ostrom.
 
The work at CSID centred around two projects, both of which are still ongoing:
1) Together with John Parker at the Barrett Honors College and the Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes Beatrice studied how a Boundary Organization (designed to straddle the divide between science and policy for water management in metropolitan Phoenix) used different strategies to achieve the goal of knowledge co-production and knowledge transfer between the scientific and policy realms, and the role that the structure of social networks, boundary players, and leadership have on the success of this endeavor.

2) Together with Amber Wutich and Paul Westerhoff (funded through the Decision Center for a Desert City at ASU), she also participated in a study to assess the public´s perception of water quality in Phoenix, using innovative methods for understanding local ecological knowledge (LEK). This project has since been expanded to also investigate perceptions of water sources and scarcity, and to compare perceptions of water quality for English and Spanish-speakers in Phoenix. Comparative case studies are being conducted inBolivia , Fiji, and New Zeeland.