Our Team

Karen Daglish is the Stronger Shores Delivery Manager based at South Tyneside Council. With a background in project and fund management, Karen has worked across the public, private, and charitable sectors in North England on landscape and seascape scale partnership schemes and community benefit funds. 

It is Karen’s job to bring the partnership together and make sure collectively we are achieving the project aims. This includes reporting to the main funder, the Environment Agency, managing the budgets, overseeing the monitoring and evaluation, and keeping the project Board up to date with progress. 

Keen to still get her feet wet, this role has inspired Karen to further her marine knowledge through distance learning and becoming a qualified scuba diver. 

Emily Ross is the Stronger Shores Delivery Project Officer at South Tyneside Council. Emily works with Delivery Partners across the North East region to help restore our oceans and precious coastline. 

Passionate about marine conservation and climate change, Emily has a background in community engagement. As a Project Delivery Officer, Emily covers all areas of the project with a focus on community participation. She has experience working with young people and in community-facing roles and has a degree in BSc Environmental Geography from the University of York.

Emily’s role is vital in raising project awareness and getting people involved in tackling coastal erosion- something that is vital to protect natural habitats, and revive ocean health using nature-based solutions. Her work will help ensure that the project’s aims and objectives are met. 

Emily is also co-lead of the Flood and Coastal Innovation Early Careers Network.

Bethany Handson is the Stronger Shores Project Officer, supporting with events, meetings, partner engagement, social media and website communications. 

Since starting her role in the team, she has been attending engagement events such as the Hartlepool Tall Ships Races, St Mary’s Wildlife Festival and This is South Tyneside Festival to help engage communities and raise awareness of Stronger Shores. 

Bethany has experience of working with external partners such as the Marine Management Organization, the Environment Agency, Natural England and the RNLI. She lives in South Tyneside and is passionate about nature-based solutions which she believes are important for the future of our coastal communities.

Nicholas Holt is a Graduate Environmental Protection Officer at South Tyneside Council.

Nicholas has a background in environmental project delivery including emergency planning, environmental sustainability, urban planning and environmental enforcement. Nicholas also has a Master’s degree in Physics from the University of Leicester. 

Nicholas will support project partners with gathering evidence to help us learn more about how seagrass, kelp and native oysters help with coastal management. Having grown up on the North East coast, Nicholas is keen to use his skills and knowledge to protect the valuable habitats found there. 

Blair Watson is the Stronger Shores Marine Engagement Officer at Durham Wildlife Trust. Blair engages communities with the project, highlighting the importance of kelp, oyster reefs, and sea grass and how they help to protect the North East's coastline.

Blair has a degree in Marine Science, and a Master's in Science Communication. Blair is passionate about working with local people, helping to build a stronger relationship between those he works with and the marine environment, thus helping to protect coastal habitats and build ocean literacy amongst the groups he engages with. He has previously worked at Dynamic Earth, Edinburgh’s Science Centre, where he engaged communities across Scotland with deep-sea natural and historical heritage, and at the Marine Conservation Society, where he engaged local communities with the nearby native oyster restoration project, the Dornoch Environmental Enhancement Project (DEEP).

His work will support communities to be stronger in the face of flooding, erosion and the impacts of climate change.