2010

Dr. Gabriele Villarini is a post-doctoral research associate in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Princeton University, working with Prof. James Smith. He received his M.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Rome “La Sapienza,” and his Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering in 2008 from the University of Iowa. In 2006 he was awarded the NASA “Earth System Science Fellowship”, in 2007 the “Outstanding Student Paper Award” by the Hydrology Section of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), and he is currently a Willis Research Network fellow. He has published over 20 peer-reviewed papers.

His research interests revolve around flood hydrology, extreme events, remote sensing of rainfall, and statistical modeling. In particular, he is interested in examining the impact of anthropogenic climate change on extreme flooding, rainfall, and tropical storm frequency. More information can be found at www.gabrielevillarini.com

2009

Dr. Bronwyn Cahill is a Research Associate at the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers University. She has a B.Sc. from Plymouth University in Ocean Sciences and a B.A. from Trinity College Dublin in French and Philosophy. She completed her Ph.D. in 2006 at Graduate School of Oceanography, University of Rhode Island. Her research interests are in coupled biological-physical ocean modeling, marine ecosystem dynamics, biogeochemical cycles and climate change. In particular, she is interested in modeling extreme climate change scenarios at different scales to see how ecosystems respond to changes in physical forcing. She works on a number of different geographical scales (e.g. entire US Eastern Continental Shelf, Mid-Atlantic Bight, NY/NJ Seabight) and uses different ecosystem models (nitrogen- and carbon-based, multiple plankton, nutrients and bacteria) to examine carbon fluxes on the Eastern US Continental Shelf, land/ocean interactions and the dynamics of coastal plumes.

Dr. Judith S. Weis is a Professor of Biological Sciences at Rutgers University, Newark Campus. She received her bachelor’s degree from Cornell University, and MS and PhD from New York University. She served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the University. Her research focuses on estuarine ecology and ecotoxicology, and she has published about 200 refereed papers, focusing mainly on stresses in the estuarine environment (including pollution, invasive species, and parasites), and their effects on organisms, populations and communities. Much of her research has been focused on estuaries in the NY/NJ Harbor area. Particular areas of focus have been effects of metal contaminants on growth, development, and behavior; development of tolerance to contaminants in populations living in contaminated areas; behavior and ecology of estuarine animals living in contaminated environments; effects of invasive marsh plant species on estuarine ecology and on fate of metal contaminants.

She was a AAAS/American Society of Zoologists Congressional Science Fellow with the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. She served for two years as a Program Director at the National Science Foundation, and has been a visiting scientist at EPA. She was for ten years Associate Editor of the Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology and is currently an Associate Editor of BioScience. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and has served on numerous advisory committees for the US Environmental Protection Agency. She has been a member of the Marine Board of the National Research Council (NAS), and serves on the National Sea Grant Advisory Board of NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). She has been on the Boards of Directors of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC), the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS), and the Association for Women in Science (AWIS). She was the Chair of the Biology Section of AAAS in 2000, and was the President of AIBS in 2001.

Dr. April N. Croxton is a Research Fishery Biologist at the NOAA Fisheries Service’s Milford Laboratory in Milford, CT. She received her B.Sc. in Biology from Virginia Union University and Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences, with a concentration in Aquatic Ecology, from Florida A&M University. Dr. Croxton joined the Milford Lab as a NOAA Educational Partnership Program’s Graduate Sciences Fellow in 2003, where she completed her dissertation research. Her dissertation topic investigated the trophic transfer of organic contaminants to the eastern oyster and the subsequent effects of this contaminant exposure on the immune defense functions of this bivalve species. Currently at the Milford Lab, Dr. Croxton is studying the effects of environmental stressors on bivalve species.

Dr. John P. Dunne has been a research oceanographer in the Biospheric Processes Group of NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory for the last 6 years, focusing on the development of global ocean biogeochemical and ecological models for both retrospective reanalysis and future projection of climate impacts on marine systems. Before arriving at GFDL, Dr. Dunne was a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University working with Jorge Sarmiento on global biogeochemical synthesis and modeling and before that at the University of Washington working with Steven Emerson and Allan Devol to develop a profiling mooring to monitor water quality in South Puget Sound over long time-
scales at high frequency. He got his PhD in 1999 from the University of Washington School of Oceanography on Measured and Modeled Particle Export in Equatorial and Coastal Upwelling Regions working with James W. Murray, an MS in 1996 at the University of Washington on 234Th and particle cycling in the central equatorial Pacific and BS in 1993 from University of California at San Diego in Chemistry. More information can be found at http://www.gfdl.gov/~jpd/

William D. Blanchard - I am the Lead Trainer for the DataStreme Ocean Program in New Jersey. My training includes a BS from Lock Haven University and a MAT from Monmouth University. Additional studies have been taken at Annapolis, Colorado School of Mines, Kean University and the University of Southern Mississippi. I have participated in the Teacher at Sea Program on the Ranier as well as the COSEE Program on the Sumner. I have taught in public school for 37 years and I am currently an adjunct in Physics Department at Georgian Court University. I am proud to represent the program and I am in debt to Dr. Ashok Deshpande and Dr. Michael Passow who are my fellow trainers in the program for the past 6 years.

Dr Edward Vanden Berghe is the current Executive Director of the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS), the information component of the Census of Marine Life (CoML). OBIS is the most authoritative web-based provider of global geo-referenced information on marine species. In his previous position, as Manager of the Flanders Marine Data- and Information Centre (VMDC), based at the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ), he was responsible to manage a team of IT people and biologists, developing databases and web applications for marine data and information. Part of his activities was to manage the European Register of Marine Species (ERMS) and the European node of the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (EurOBIS). One of the main issues that have engaged him in recent work is to make biodiversity data available through the internet, free and open for everyone to use - policy issues connected to this, how to ensure that data originators are properly acknowledged, and that contributing data to on-line systems is recognised in career advancement. Dr Vanden Berghe holds a PhD in Zoology from the Free University Brussels, with a thesis on mathematical modelling of nematode morphology.

2008

Robert Pikanowski is a Biological Information Specialist at the J. J. Howard Lab in Sandy Hook, NJ and has worked there since 1984. He has a degree in Physics (The Cooper Union, 1969) and attended The Graduate School of Oceanography at The University of Rhode Island. He has designed a Congressional study on PCBs in bluefish; the 12-Mile Sewage Sludge Dump Site Recovery Study; a Dredge Spoil Contaminants in Recreational Fish study; an Environmental Assessment of Flood Water Diversion on Newark Bay; and the Raritan Bay Trawl Survey, among others. He and Clyde MacKenzie conducted and published one of the few true inferential experiments in the marine environment (the effects of clam raking on habitat).

DR. HIRAM LEVY II is Senior Research Scientist and Leader of Biospheric Process Group, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory/NOAA. He received a B.Sc. in Chemistry from Iowa State University and Ph.D. in Chemistry from Harvard University. His research is to understand the interactions between the earth's biosphere and climate and assess the impact of current and future human activities on global air quality, climate, and biogeochemical cycles. Some specific topics are: The influence of dust on ocean biogeochemistry and climate; The interaction between climate change and air quality; The interannual variability in CO2 sinks, sources and accumulation; The impact of human fixation of nitrogen on global nitrogen biogeochemistry. For more detail see his home page.

Edward J. McGinley received a B.Sc. in Marine Biology from Saint Francis University in Loretto, PA. & a Master's Degree from Frostburg State University in Frostburg, MD. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. from West Virginia Univeristy in Morgantown, WV. Project goal: To determine if fatty acid signatures are useful in examining the diets of striped bass.

2007

Dr. Michael. J. Fogarty is a Senior Scientist at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, Woods Hole, Massachusetts where he has been employed since 1980. He received his doctorate from the University of Rhode Island. He currently holds adjunct appointments at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the University of Rhode Island, and the University of Maryland. He has served on numerous national and international panels and committees including the Scientific Steering Committee of the U.S. Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics (GLOBEC) Program which focuses on climate impacts on marine ecosystems. He served as chair of the GLOBEC Steering Committee from 1997-2002. His current responsibilities include serving as Program Director for Ecosystem-Based Management at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center. His research interests center on the ecosystem effects of fishing and the role of climate change in marine ecosystem dynamics.

Dr. Rebecca Jordan received her M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Organismal and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst under the advisement of Francis Juanes. Her dissertation research investigated the visually guided mating behavior of Lake Malawi cichlid fish. Rebecca took a post-doctoral position as a Science and Technology Council Fellow with James Gould at Princeton University. There she expanded her interests to animal learning in general and incorporated work with undergraduate science learning. After two years at Princeton, Rebecca took a Visiting Assistant Professor position at Elizabeth City State University as part of a partnership with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In Elizabeth City, Rebecca continued her work with fishes focusing mainly on poeciliids and broadened her study of science learning to incorporate informal audiences. Rebecca is currently an Assistant Professor of Environmental Education and Citizen Science in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources at Rutgers University New Brunswick. There she has returned to studying behavior in Lake Malawi cichlids. She also continues her work investigating public learning of science.

Mark Wuenschel received his B.Sc. in Biology from Ursinus College, M.Sc. in Biology from East Stroudsburg University, and Ph.D. in Fish and Wildlife Biology and Management from the State University of New York – College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse. His Ph.D. research, carried out at the NOAA Center for Coastal Fisheries and Habitat Research in Beaufort, North Carolina, investigated the physiological ecology (bioenergetics) of larval and juvenile spotted seatrout in response to temperature and salinity. This led to a post-doctoral position with Jon Hare to investigate energetics of juvenile gray snapper to evaluate the effects of restoration of freshwater flows to Florida Bay. He is currently at the Rutgers University Marine Field Station, working with Ken Able on coastwide patterns in bluefish recruitment. His main interest is the ecology of fishes, specifically, determining factors (abiotic and biotic) that affect growth, survival, recruitment, and population dynamics. Current research also includes swimming ability and energetics of eels at ingress, food habits of piscivorous fishes on the continental shelf, and age and growth techniques.

William Simmons is the Environmental Health Coordinator for all environmental programs, including GIS and the departmental webpage, for the Monmouth County Health Department in New Jersey. He received a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1973, and in 1990, he received a Masters in Public Health from the University of Medicine and Dentistry. He is a licensed Health Officer and was the first Water Pollution Coordinator in Monmouth County, from 1986 through 1991. He chaired the TMDL/303D subcommittee for Watershed Management Area 12 in Monmouth County from 2000-2001, overseeing a subcontracted Rosgen analysis of erosion and siltation in the reaches upstream of the Manasquan River Estuary.

Lauren Bergey received her B.Sc. in marine biology from Millersville University, Millersville, PA, in 1994, her M.Sc. in environmental science from East Carolina University, Greenville, NC in 2000, and is currently finishing her Ph.D. in biology (ecology and evolution) at Rutgers University, Newark. Her master’s research investigated maternal genetics and variability of striped bass, Morone saxatilis, egg characteristics in seven populations along the Eastern Seaboard from Georgia to Nova Scotia. Her current research involves investigating behavioral ecology, uptake and storage of metals, and population ecology of three populations of fiddler crabs, Uca pugnax, in sites with varying pollution loads along the New Jersey Coast.

Dr. Mark Sullivan received his M.Sc. degree in Marine Environmental Science from the SUNY Stony Brook Marine Sciences Research Center (1999) and a Ph.D. in Marine Biology and Fisheries from the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (2004). His dissertation research, supervised by Robert Cowen, investigated the effects of mobile fishing gear on recently settled yellowtail flounder relative to natural processes on the New York Bight shelf. He recently completed a post-doctoral position with Ken Able at the Rutgers University Marine Field Station examining the linkages between supply and environmental variability for American eel glass eels along the U.S. mid-Atlantic coast. This effort brought together long-term data sets from Little Egg Inlet, New Jersey and Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina. Mark is currently an Assistant Professor in the Marine Science program at The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey where he is continuing to work on research themes related to American eel early life history.

Dr. Jennifer Biddle has a B.Sc. degree in Biotechnology from Rutgers University, and after graduation, spent time working in both industry and academics. She has recently earned a Ph.D. in Biochemistry, Microbiology and Molecular Biology from Pennsylvania State University. During her graduate career, she was trained as an interdisciplinary scientist through the Biogeochemical Research Initative in Education NSF-IGERT program. Her thesis concentrated on the microbial communities found in deeply buried marine sediments. These studies earned her distinctions as a Joint Oceanographic Institutions Schlanger Fellow and also a NASA Space Grant Fellow. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the PSU Department of Geosciences and is continuing to examine the cells of the deeply buried biosphere by metagenomics.

Dr. Joseph Kunkel was a model-system benchtop-physiologist and biochemist until 1992 when he first was introduced to the NOAA CMER Program by Willi Bemis, then a young professor at UMass, Amherst. It was clear to Joe that many of the skills that he had learned in studying the model systems in the lab could be applied to helping solve practical problems that were apparent to workers in the marine sciences and particularly to NMFS Scientists. His developed expertise in technologies for studying serum storage proteins fit in with several emerging issues concerning fish vitellogenins, the major source of egg storage proteins used for various purposes by the developing fish embryo. In addition, his developing skills in measuring ion flux have made this strength an asset in studies of fish ion regulation. Professor Kunkel is currently involved in a NOAA/CMER project to study bluefish vitellogenesis and its relationship to CYP1A induction by freshwater pollutants pouring into the habitat of the bluefish. In addition, he is also involved in MIT and RI-Sea Grant projects on the mineralization of lobster cuticle which he believes is related to the incidence of shell disease, a real and impending greater threat to the lobster industry in the Northeast USA.

Dr. Richard McBride is a research biologist at NOAA Fisheries’ “Northeast Fisheries Science Center”. In 2006, he became the Branch Chief for the Center’s “Population Biology Branch”, which has programs located in Woods Hole, MA, (Fish Biology Program, Food Web Dynamics Program) and Narragansett, RI (Apex Predator Investigation). These programs pursue basic and applied research on the biology and ecology of fishes in the North Atlantic Ocean. Research products from the Branch are used in original research publications, as data in stock assessment models, and for management advice. The principal species of interest for such investigations are groundfishes (cods, hakes, and flounders), pelagic fishes (mackerel, herring), elasmobranchs (sharks, skates, and rays), and select invertebrates (surfclam, squid, and northern shrimp). Additionally, feeding data analyses and trophic modeling studies are used to investigate ecosystem-level processes and management. Dr. McBride’s own research interests include fish population dynamics (i.e., abundance, distribution, and subpopulation structure of fishes), and life history (i.e., age, growth, and reproduction). He has worked with a variety of commercial, recreational, and unexploited species, in tropical, subtropical, temperate, and boreal regions. He received his B.Sc. from Eckerd College (Biology), his M.Sc. from Stony Brook University (Marine Science), and his Ph.D. from Rutgers University (Ecology & Evolution). Prior to joining NOAA Fisheries, Dr. McBride spent 12 years as a scientist with the Florida Marine Research Institute (now know as the Fish & Wildlife Research Institute of the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission) in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Mark Carls is a member of NOAA Fisheries Service’s Auke Bay Laboratory in Juneau, Alaska. Mark completed his M.Sc. degree in biological oceanography at Dalhousie University. His thesis focused on the effects of oil on fish embryos, and he has been involved in this type of research for nearly 30 years. Since the Exxon Valdez oil spill, Mark has been a principal investigator of several spill-related topics including embryo toxicity (pink salmon, Pacific herring, and zebrafish), pink salmon habitat, copepods and PAH in the water column, and intertidal sediment and mussel contamination. He is also involved in various committees, such as the Coastal Response Research Center, Herring recovery group (Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council), and the NOAA Habitat and Ecological Processes team. Other interests include music, photography, woodworking, and a wide variety of outdoor activities.

Dr. Kyle Hartman received his B.S. and M.Sc. from Ohio State and his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland at Chesapeake Biological Laboratory (1993) where he worked with Steve Brandt. He was a Post-doctoral Fellow at Chesapeake Biological Laboratory and at Buffalo before moving to WVU where he was hired as an ecologist in the Wildlife & Fisheries Department. He is currently the Chair of that Dept. His research interests are far ranging with current studies in large lakes in Alaska, headwater streams in West Virginia, and the ongoing coastal bluefish and striped bass work. One common theme in much of his work is the application of fish bioenergetics models. The subject of Dr. Hartman’s talk today is potentially a revolutionary step in improving these models for use in ecological applications.

2006

Shayla D. Williams, Ph.D. is a Research Chemist at the James J. Howard Marine Science Laboratory. She received her B.Sc. in Biology from Albany State University (Albany, Georgia) in 1998 and a Ph.D. in Environmental Science from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (Tallahassee, FL) in 2006. Her first position in NOAA was as an animal pathologist assistant at the Southeast Fisheries Science Center in Miami, FL in the summer of 2001. She was transferred to Sandy Hook in October of 2001 where she completed her doctoral research. Her topic was chemical fingerprinting in YOY bluefish. She is currently assisting in developing techniques for measuring fatty acids in tunicate.

Mr. Ronald Pinzon is a biologist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New York District. Ronald is responsible for identifying and evaluating environmental impacts and accomplishing NEPA compliance for Corps projects. As a project biologist, Ronald has worked on a number of EFH related activities for the NY & NJ Harbor Deepening Project. Among these are Aquatic Biological Surveys of the Harbor, artificial reef creation in the Lower Bay and post-dredging benthic recovery in Federal Channels. He is actively looking for potential sites for EFH enhancement opportunities within the Harbor. Prior to working with the Corps, Ronald was a Marine Resource Specialist with the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC). While with the NYSDEC, he worked in the Marine Fisheries Division conducting the Western Long Island and Lower Hudson River Beach Seine Surveys; targeting juvenile striped bass and the Peconic Bay Estuary Trawl Surveys to determine adult stock abundance and juvenile recruitment indices for weakfish, winter flounder, scup, bluefish and tautog. Ronald has also worked in NYSDEC’s Region II office where he worked the regulatory side for the Marine Habitat Protection Section.

Michael Frisk recently joined the Marine Sciences Research Center of Stony Brook University as an Assistant Professor of Marine Science. Mike’s research focuses on the interaction of population dynamics, ecology, and life history evolution in fishes in the general areas of applied ecosystem and population modeling, ecology, and meta-analyses. Mike received a B.Sc. from North Carolina State University in 1996, and a M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the University of Maryland in 2000 and 2004, respectively. Currently, he is developing a length-based statistical catch-at-age model for winter skate in the western Atlantic and a multi-species model of Delaware Bay using Ecopath and Ecosim software. Knowledge of a species’ basic vital rates and ecology is essential for development of population models and management. Mike has been involved in obtaining relevant estimates for growth, age, fecundity, and maturation of little skate and winter skate in the western Atlantic. Lastly, Mike has applied meta-analysis techniques to previously published data in order to develop mathematical and statistical trends of related species to gain insight into the ecology, evolution, and management of various elasmobranchs and teleosts.

Howard Browman is a Principal Research Scientist at the Institute of Marine Research, Austevoll Research Station, Norway. His research activity deals mainly with ichthyoplankton-zooplankton interactions, in both aquacultural and ecological contexts. In addition to his research activities, Howard is also Vice-President and Scientific Director of Inter-Research Science Center, Associate Editor-in-Chief of Marine Ecology Progress Series, Co-Editor-in-Chief of Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics, Co-Director of the Eco-ethics International Union, and President of the American Fisheries Society's Early Life History Section. More information about Howard can be found at: www.fishlarvae.com.

Jake Kritzer is a Puleston Fellow at the Oceans Program of Environmental Defense, will be speaking on his wide-ranging work on metapopulations of fishes. Jake completed his PhD at JCU, Townsville Australia, where he worked on the coral reef striped bass. He then moved to Canada for a post-doc with Peter Sale, to study recruitment and connectivity in Caribbean fishes. Jake currently works on Long Island,and studies anadromous river herring and the American eel. Jake has recently co-edited a book Marine Metapopulations by Jacob P. Kritzer and Peter F. Sale

Catriona Clemmesen is a Research Scientist at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University, Germany. Presently Catriona is an exchange scholar at the Graduate School of Oceanography, University of Rhode Island, USA. Catriona’s research interests are in fish ecology, particularly in aspects of larval fish growth, physiological ecology, and recruitment studies. She has specialized in methods to determine growth and condition mainly using biochemical indicators (RNA/DNA ratios) and otolith microstructure analyses) and has used laboratory and mesocosm studies to calibrate these indicators. She has been involved in evaluating growth and condition of larval fish in the Indian Ocean and around seamounts, and has investigated condition of larval anchovies from South America. Her research funded from the European Union and with Norwegian colleagues used mesocosms in evaluating maternal effects on larval cod by the means of DNA microsatellite analyses and studying the persistence of these effects. Presently she is involved in the German GLOBEC program in a study of the interactions between larval fish growth and survival in relation to environmental effects and in an analysis of the trophodynamic consequences of climate change in the Baltic and the North Sea. Catriona received a B.S. from the School of Fisheries, University of Washington, Seattle in 1982, a Diploma degree from the University of Kiel, Germany in 1985, and a Ph.D. from the University of Hamburg, Germany in 1992.

Tom Grothues is a Research Assistant Professor at the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers University, and works out of the Marine Field Station in Little Egg Harbor. Tom’s research interests are in fish ecology, particularly in aspects of larval fish dispersal, physiological ecology, and migration biology. He has studied larval fish transport among California’s coastal islands using molecular population genetics and examined the adaptations of larval fish to movement around Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, where many inshore species are potentially swept out to sea away from their nursery grounds. In New Jersey he is studying the dynamics of Delaware Bay salt-marsh fish from larval ingress from the ocean through settlement and recruitment to juvenile populations. Most recently he became involved in studying estuarine use by striped bass and other migrant fish species as a mechanism for the segregation of existing populations and the establishment of new ones. Tom received a B.A. in Aquatic Biology from University of California, Santa Barbara in 1988, a M.S. from California State University, Northridge in 1994, and a Ph.D. in Coastal Oceanography from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, in 1999.

Ray Hinkle is a Principal Ecologist with URS in their Wayne, NJ office. URS is a 27,000 person firm that provides a wide variety of engineering and environmental services to public and private sector clients worldwide, including serving as a support contractor to the NOAA Damage Assessment and Restoration Program. Over the past 12 years Ray has assisted PSEG in the implementation of various elements of their Estuary Enhancement Program (EEP) associated with the restoration of approximately 8,000 acres of tidal wetlands on Delaware Bay. One of his primary areas of involvement with PSEG has been the implementation and field evaluation of various approaches for the restoration of natural marsh production and diversity through the control of invasive Phragmites australis. Ray is part of the consultant team that is assisting the New York District Corps of Engineers with current plans to implement restoration within the Hudson Raritan Estuary and has worked with the New York State Department of Conservation to evaluate restoration potential for several wetlands in New York City, including the recently completed Bridge Creek Wetland Complex on Staten Island.