Appendix B
Committee Member Biographies
Jerry R. Schubel has been president and CEO of the Aquarium of the Pacific (AOP) in Long Beach, CA, since 2002. Before that, he was president and CEO of the New England Aquarium (1994–2001) and dean and director of the Marine Science Research Center of the State University of New York at Sony Brook (1974–1994). Throughout his professional life, Dr. Schubel has worked at the interfaces of science, management, and policy on ocean issues. He has published more than 225 scientific papers and has written extensively for general audiences. He is a member of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Science Advisory Board, the Science Advisory Panel for California’s Ocean Protection Council, and the Board of Governors of the Savannah Ocean Exchange. He chaired the National Sea Grant Review Panel, the National Research Council’s Marine Board, and the Ocean Research and Resources Advisory Panel. He has served on numerous National Research Council committees, is a former member of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Science Advisory Board, the Census of Marine Life U.S. National Committee, and the National Science Foundation’s Education and Human Resources Advisory Committee. Dr. Schubel received an honorary doctorate from the Massachusetts Maritime Academy in 1998 and holds a Ph.D. in oceanography from Johns Hopkins University.
Felicia C. Coleman is the director of the Florida State University Coastal and Marine Laboratory. Dr. Coleman is a marine ecologist with a particular interest in reef fish behavior and use of habitat. She also focuses on how scientific findings are incorporated into laws and regulations that affect the management and conservation of living marine resources. Dr. Coleman has served on a number of committees and councils focused on conservation of marine resources including the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, the Marine Protected Areas Federal Advisory Committee, and the National Research Council.
Cathy Conrad is a professor in the Department of Geography of Saint Mary’s University and adjunct professor at Dalhousie University and Wilfrid Laurier University (WLU) in Waterloo, Ontario. Her research encompasses fluvial geomorphology, watershed management, community-based environmental monitoring, and water quality. She has been involved with numerous environmental stewardship groups. She currently serves as research coordinator for the Community-Based Environmental Monitoring Network. She is actively involved in community-based conservation management projects in Cuba, Vietnam, and a number of sub-Saharan West African nations. Dr. Conrad received her B.A. (Honors, First Class) from Saint Mary’s University in 1993, her master of environmental studies from Wilfrid Laurier University in 1995, and her Ph.D. in geography in the joint Waterloo-WLU graduate program in 2000.
Diane M. Debinski is a professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology of Iowa State University. She focuses her research on understanding and predicting species distribution and abundance patterns across the landscape on local and regional scales. Those patterns, when analyzed for spatial or temporal trajectories, can become bioindicators of climate change. In mountain systems, Dr. Debinski has studied the responses of plant and animal species to drought, warming conditions, and reduced snowpack. She has studied how landscape configuration, context, and management affect local and regional species patterns in prairie and grassland systems. Dr. Debinski received her B.A. from the University of Maryland in 1984, her M.S. from the University of Michigan in 1986, and her Ph.D. from Montana State University in 1991.
Peter M. Kareiva (NAS) is chief scientist of The Nature Conservatory, where he is responsible for developing and helping to implement science-based conservation throughout the organization. He joined The Nature Conservancy’s staff in 2002 after more than 20 years in academe and work at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, where he directed the Northwest Fisheries Science Center Conservation Biology Division. In addition to his duties as the Conservancy’s chief scientist, Dr. Kareiva’s current projects emphasize the interplay of human land use and biodiversity, resilience in the face of global change, and marine conservation. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Kareiva received an M.S. in environmental biology from the University of California, Irvine and a Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology from Cornell University.
George I. Matsumoto has been the senior educational and research specialist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) in Moss Landing, CA, since 1996. His research interests include pelagic and benthic communities, ecology, and biogeography of pelagic and benthic organisms, and functional morphology, natural history, and behavior of pelagic and benthic organisms. In addition to performing research at MBARI, Dr. Matsumoto manages several education and outreach efforts, including the seminar program, the internship program, and collaborations with MBARI’s sister organization, the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Past professional experience includes teaching at Flinders University in Australia and serving as a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow. Dr. Matsumoto is an adjunct professor at Monterey Peninsula College. He received his Ph.D. in biological sciences from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1990.
Diane M. McKnight (NAE) is a professor of civil, environmental, and architectural engineering at the University of Colorado. Her research focuses on interactions between hydrological, chemical, and biological processes in the control of dynamics in aquatic ecosystems. That research is carried out through field-scale experiments, modeling, and laboratory characterization of natural substrates. Dr. McKnight also conducts research on interactions between freshwater biota, trace metals, and natural organic material in diverse freshwater environments, including lakes and streams in the Colorado Rocky Mountains and in the McMurdo Dry Valleys in Antarctica. She develops interactions with state and local groups involved in mine drainage and watershed issues in the Rocky Mountains. Dr.
McKnight is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. She is a former member of the National Research Council’s Water Science and Technology Board and Polar Research Board. She received her Ph.D. in environmental engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1979.
Camille Parmesan is a professor of integrative biology at the University of Texas at Austin. She is also the National Marine Aquarium Chair in Public Understanding of Oceans and Human Health at the Plymouth University (UK) Marine Institute. Dr. Parmesan’s research focuses on the current impacts of climate change on wildlife and ranges from field-based work on American and European butterflies to synthetic analyses of global impacts on a broad array of species in terrestrial and marine biomes. Dr. Parmesan collaborates with field stations in the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, Finland, the Netherlands, France, and Australia for her work on the impacts of climate change on biodiversity. Through those collaborations, she has examined approaches to integrating databases to make research results on climate-change impacts available to the scientific community and for policy decisions. Dr. Parmesan works actively with government agencies and nongovernment organizations to help to develop conservation assessment and planning tools aimed at preserving biodiversity in the face of climate change. In 2007, she was awarded the Conservation Achievement Award in Science by the National Wildlife Federation, named Outstanding Woman Working on Climate Change by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and included in Who’s Who of Women and the Environment by the United Nations Environment Programme. Dr. Parmesan has been involved as an author and reviewer in multiple reports for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and is co-recipient with Al Gore of the Nobel Peace Prize awarded in 2007. She received her Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Texas in 1995.
Robert Plowes is a research scientist in the University of Texas Brackenridge Field Laboratory in Austin. His research focuses on understanding causes and consequences of biological invasions and the impacts of land use and land management on biodiversity. He studies host–parasite–pathogen interactions as a basis of biological control of invasive species, using molecular and microbial tools. He is also responsible for coordinating research and education activities and leading infrastructure development projects at two University of Texas field stations. Dr. Plowes received his Ph.D. in landscape ecology from the University of Texas at Austin in 2005 after a career as a consulting electric-systems engineer and engineering-business manager in Africa and the United States.
Alison G. Power is a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and the Department of Science and Technology Studies of Cornell University. At Cornell, she served as dean of the Graduate School in 2001–2010. Her research focuses on ecosystem services in agriculture, agroecology, interactions between agricultural and natural ecosystems, and disease ecology in plant communities. She is a past president of the Ecological Society of America and of the Association of Graduate Schools. She serves on the Board on Life Sciences of the National Academies, the U.S. National Committee for DIVERSITAS, and the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Power
received a B.S. in biology from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and a Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Washington.
Mary Power (NAS) is a professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley and is the faculty manager of Angelo Coast Range Reserve. Her research interests center on river food webs and the interactions among fish, birds, invertebrates, and algae in temperate and tropical rivers. Dr. Power is especially interested in how attributes of species affect food-web structure and dynamics and how the strengths of the interactions change under different environmental regimes. Much of Dr. Power’s field work takes place in the South Fork Eel River in the Angelo Coast Range Reserve in Mendocino, CA, one of the University of California Natural Reserve System’s 35 research and teaching reserves. Dr. Power received her B.A. from Brown University in 1971, her M.S. from the Boston University Marine Program in 1974, and her Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 1981.
Mark R. Stromberg was from 1988 to 2011 the resident director of the Hastings Natural History Reservation, a reserve in the University of California (UC) Natural Reserve System (NRS), established in 1937 by the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology of UC, Berkeley for advanced research and teaching in field biology. In 2011, he moved to a position with the UC NRS in the UC Office of the President. At Hastings, Dr. Stromberg coordinated all the research on the reserve; managed the facility maintenance; developed, administered, and maintained the reserve’s computer network; served as data manager and Web manager; planned long-term projects; hosted visiting groups; represented the reserve to local and regional organizations and government agencies; represented the reserve in national and regional organizations (such as CalEON, the California Biodiversity Center, the Organization of Biological Field Stations, and the UC NRS); oversaw safety and animal-care issues; and functioned as co-principal investigator on grants. Dr. Stromberg managed the first of many California Proposition 84 grants to the UC NRS to install new windows, electric service, plumbing, and insulation and many other needed upgrades in the older buildings. He arranged over $4 million in funding for infrastructure at Hastings, including new laboratories, classrooms, barns, garages, and housing for up to 40 visitors. Developing other funding, Dr. Stromberg collaborated with the Western Regional Climate Center to install online weather stations at Hastings and 18 other UC reserves. Developing funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), he coordinated the installation of a fast radio link to the Internet and provided wireless Internet access essentially anywhere on Hastings. He also coordinated similar cyberinfrastructure installations in 14 other NRS reserves with ARRA funds. Dr. Stromberg is assisting in writing a strategic plan for the NRS to focus on seven themes to develop the strengths of NRS as a network over the next 10 years. He received a B.S. in wildlife biology from Colorado State University in 1973, an M.S. in zoology from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1975, and a Ph.D. in zoology in 1979 from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
