M.Arch Alum Evelyn Tickle Receives Grant to Expand Underwater Climate Work

SCI-Arc is proud to share that alumna Evelyn Tickle (M.Arch ’94) and her company GRoW Oyster Reefs, LLC have been awarded a US National Science Foundation (NSF) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant for $275,000. The grant will fund GRoW Oyster Reefs’ work conducting research and development to evolve and scale the next generation of their biophilic concrete modular reef substrates, with the aim of driving down costs, reducing embodied carbon, and increasing production capacity from hundreds per week to thousands per day.

Addressing the urgent need for economically feasible shoreline protection and ocean ecosystem restoration products that are ‘Made in America,’ Tickle’s company has developed a range of products using biomimetics, including a patented CaCO3 concrete mix, matching the chemical composition of calcitic marine reef-building organisms including oysters, mussels, cold water corals, and sponges. These products are designed to jump-start native reefs as an effective nature-based alternative to conventional shoreline defense infrastructures, and scour protection associated with offshore wind installations.

“Indigenous coastal communities need affordable substrates to build living shorelines,” explains Tickle of GRoW’s mission. “Large-scale offshore wind projects with a significant investment from the Federal Government and the private sector need alternative solutions for scour protection that will restore the ecosystems affected by construction.” As a visionary entrepreneur and educator committed to climate equity in a field where competition is international and male-dominated, Tickle has created GRoW to be an American, 100% woman-owned business.

Tickle hopes that the goal of Phase 1 of the grant-funded project for GRoW will be instrumental in helping the international community establish best practices in relation to work underwater and on the coastlines of the planet, to ensure a positive environmental and social impact in the future.

“GRoW's commitment to the culture at large is based on the undeniable principle that a healthy ocean is a prerequisite for a healthy planet, and that every minute matters,” she says. “Rising temperatures, acidification, and the destruction caused by increasingly frequent storms must be addressed, and commercially sound, sustainable, profitable business practices must be developed that can restore hope as much as they can revive species that are in danger of becoming extinct.”

To learn more about GroW Oyster Reefs, LLC and the NSF grant, visit the Seed Fund website.