Shannon started as the project coordinator for the Marine Regions Forum in October 2022. Prior to this, she spent 7 years working on various ocean governance research and capacity development initiatives throughout Africa while working at the IOI-SA, including coordinating the annual Course in Ocean Governance for Africa. Her work there also included coordinating IOI-SA's contributions to the STRONG High Seas Project, MeerWissen's WIOGEN and MAMI WATA's Marine Spatial Planning capacity development program, amongst other projects. After completing her PhD in a multidisciplinary study on small pelagic fish stock structure (UCT, South Africa), she co-wrote the generic Industry Code of Conduct for Responsible Fishing in South Africa on contract for CapFish and spent time volunteering on the Namibian Dolphin Project. Her MSc was on African Penguins while her BSc (Hons) projects focused on inter-tidal invasive species. She continued to work on invasive species management topics both during her time at IOI-SA and prior to that with SANBI.