Assessing ecological changes over relevant scales of space and time is essential to identify the full magnitude and critical drivers of change, but such reliable information rarely exists. At the same time, management challenges are often complex and urgent, requiring the latest  contemporary approaches to monitoring, data, and modeling. In this seminar, I will discuss how my colleagues and I have addressed  marine conservation problems in four settings – kelp forest ecosystems, shark fin trafficking, deep sea microplastic, and ocean warming. I will situate these programs within U.S. federal science strategies and international conservation initiatives, hopefully offering more informed benchmarks and novel insights to build coastal resiliency.