REBECCA “BECKY” ALLEE is a Fisheries Biologist and Senior Scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Gulf Coast Services Center (GCSC) and is currently serving as the lead for NOAA’s RESTORE Act Science Program science plan development team. As the lead for this team, Dr. Allee is facilitating a group of NOAA experts to develop a long-term science plan for the RESTORE Act Science Program’s focus areas and priority research topics. As Senior Scientist for GCSC, Dr. Allee provides guidance and technical support to help identify priority objectives of ecosystem assessment and characterization and provides technical and scientific consultation and guidance on proposed activities for coastal resource management. Dr. Allee has been with NOAA since receiving her doctorate in biological sciences from the University of Arkansas.
EDWARD BARBIER is the John S. Bugas Professor of Economics, Department of Economics and Finance, University of Wyoming. His main expertise is natural resource and development economics as well as the interface between economics and ecology. He has served as a consultant and policy analyst for a variety of national, international and non-governmental agencies, including many UN organizations, the OECD and the World Bank. Professor Barbier is on the editorial boards of several leading economics and natural science journals, and he appears in the 4th edition of Who's Who in Economics. In 2008, he was named by Cambridge University as one of the 50 most influential thinkers on sustainability in the world, and among his honors and awards, he has received the 1991 Mazzotti Prize (Italy) for contributions to economics and ecology. Professor Barbier has authored over 200 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, written or edited 21 books, and published in popular journals and media. His books include Blueprint for a Green Economy (with David Pearce and Anil Markandya, 1989), Natural Resources and Economic Development (2005), A Global Green New Deal (2010), Scarcity and Frontiers: How Economies Have Developed Through Natural Resource Exploitation (2011), Capitalizing on Nature: Ecosystems as Natural Assets (2011) and A New Blueprint for a Green Economy (with Anil Markandya, 2012).
PATRICK BARNES is a professional geologist and environmental justice advocate. In 1994 he founded BFA Environmental a minority owned, multidiscipline environmental engineering and scientific consulting firm. At their peak BFA had over 150 employees in the gulf, executing 20 million dollars in contracts. BFA has completed emergency response and environmental restoration projects in Florida, Louisiana, and Texas. At the core of a successful restoration project is data collection and monitoring. Under contracts with the South Florida Water Management District, charged with implementing the multibillion Everglades Restoration Program, BFA has provided over 3 million dollars of data collection and environmental monitoring services. In 2006 he provided $300,000 of seed capital to establish Limitless Vistas, a workforce development non-profit and Conservation Corps, which has subsequently trained and certified over 350 at-risk young adults for the emergency response and coastal restoration projects resulting from hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav and Ike and the BP oil spill. BFA/LVI is currently under contract with the State of Florida’s Career Source Program to provide short term environmental, geotechnical, construction inspection services to 180 unemployed and underemployed individuals in central Florida. In April of 2013 Mr. Barnes was recognized by the White House as a Champion of Change for his effort to bring environmental resiliency to vulnerable coastal communities through job training.
RUSSELL BEARD is the Director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Coastal Data Development Center (NCDDC), a division of the National Oceanographic Data Center, Stennis Space Center, MS. He is currently serving as the Acting Director of the NOAA RESTORE Science Program. Mr. Beard was the National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Services (NESDIS) representative to NOAA’s Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force, serves as the NESDIS representative to the Northern Gulf Institute serving on the Advisory Council, and is the NESDIS lead for the Gulf of Mexico Alliance (GOMA) Ecosystem Integrated Assessments Priority Issue Team; serves as the NOAA Regional Team Lead for the Gulf of Mexico Regional Collaboration Team
(GoMRCT), and was a GoMRCT science lead for DEEP-WATER HORIZON (DWH), and a member of the DWH Joint Analysis Group. Professional highlights include serving as a senior scientist aboard the NR-1, the US Navy’s nuclear research submersible; receiving the US Navy’s Meritorious Civilian Service Medal and the Department of Commerce (NOAA) Silver Medal for Meritorious Service. He graduated from Millsaps College with a BA in History (1975), a BS in Geology (1984), awarded a MS degree from the University of Southern Mississippi in Geology (1986), and was a doctoral student at Old Dominion University’s Department of Oceanography (1986-1987). Mr. Beard is a graduate of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Graduate School’s Executive Potential Program for senior federal employees (2000). Additionally, Mr. Beard is a graduate of the University of the South (Sewanee) Extension Education for the Ministry (2005). In April of 2007, the University of Southern Mississippi, College of Science and Technology selected Russ as Alumni of the Year.
MARK BENFIELD is a biological oceanographer who is a Professor in the Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences at LSU. His research focuses on the use of optical, acoustical, and direct sampling systems to understand the distributions of zooplankton on scales of centimeters to kilometers. He also studies biodiversity in the Gulf of Mexico from the surface to the bathypelagic zone. This latter work is conducted through the Gulf SERPENT Project: a partnership between the oil and gas industry, the federal government, and LSU. He received his B.S. from the University of Toronto, an M.Sc. from the University of Natal, and a Ph.D. from Texas A&M University. His postdoctoral work was done in the Biology Department at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution where he currently has an adjunct appointment.
LANDRY BERNARD was born and raised in Louisiana. He earned a BS Degree in Physics from Loyola University in New Orleans and a MSEE Degree from Virginia Tech. Mr. Bernard has over 45 years of experience in the Marine Science Industry. His first 32 years were as a civilian in the Department of the Navy. The last 10 of those were spent serving as Technical Director of the Naval Oceanographic Office, where he managed an organization of 1000 people, a $250M annual budget, over 40 international agreements, 8 new oceanographic/hydrographic survey ships, 2 oceanographic aircraft, a high performance supercomputer center, and the worlds largest integrated data base. In 2001, Mr. Bernard began working for the University of Southern Mississippi (USM) under the Intergovernmental Personnel Act Mobility Program as an Inter-Personnel Assignment (IPA) to the National Data Buoy Center (NDBC). Mr. Bernard serves as NDBC’s Program, Planning, and Integration Director and was the Project Manager for the Congressional funded Convert Weather Buoy Program. In 2013, Mr. Bernard became the Associate Executive Director, Gulf of Mexico Coastal Ocean Observing System (GCOOS). Mr. Bernard is a member of the Marine Technology Society, IEEE Computer Society, the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society, the U.S. Hydrographic Society, the International Hydrographic Society, and the Louisiana Technology Council. Mr. Bernard is the author of over 50 papers in the area of Marine Science. In June 2001, the IOC-IHO/GEBCO approved the naming of the Landry Bernard Seamount at Lat/Long 26N177E. In 2007, Mr. Bernard was awarded a Fellow of the Marine Technology Society.
DONALD F. BOESCH is a Professor of Marine Science and President of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. He also serves as Vice Chancellor for Environmental Sustainability for the University System of Maryland. Dr. Boesch is a biological oceanographer who has conducted research in coastal and continental shelf environments along the Atlantic Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico, eastern Australia and the East China Sea. He has published two books and more than 90 papers on marine benthos, estuaries, wetlands, continental shelves, oil pollution, nutrient over-enrichment, environmental assessment and monitoring and science policy. Presently his research focuses on the use of science in ecosystem management, and he is active in extending knowledge to environmental and resource management at regional, national and international levels. Dr. Boesch has served as science advisor to many state and federal agencies and regional, national and international programs, and has chaired numerous committees and scientific assessment teams that have produced reports on a wide variety of coastal environmental and climate change issues. He was a member of the National Academies Committee on America’s Climate Choice and served as chair of the National Research Council’s Ocean Studies Board. A native of New Orleans, Boesch received his B.S. from Tulane University and Ph.D. from the College of William & Mary. He was a Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Queensland and subsequently served on the faculty of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. In 1980 he became the first Executive Director of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, where he was also a Professor of Marine Science at Louisiana State University. He assumed his present position in Maryland in 1990. Dr Boesch served as a member of the President’s s 7-member Oil Spill Commission, formed immediately after the Deepwater Horizon spill to investigate the root causes of the blowout.
ROBERT S. CARNEY is a Professor in Louisiana State University’s Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences. Dr. Carney’s primary research expertise is in deep-ocean biological oceanography, but he is also familiar with shallow systems having directed the Coastal Ecology Institute of LSU for 9 years. He has been awarded numerous grants for his research since 1978, including multiple awards from the Minerals Management Service (now BOEM) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to support the new sampling as well as reanalysis of archival deep Gulf of Mexico data. He was a PI in the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Census of Marine Life and co-directs international research on continental margin ecosystems. He is a founding member of INDEEP (International Network for Scientific Investigation of the Deep Sea). In addition to basic science, he has published on the design of oil-related impact studies and information needs of deep ocean management. Dr. Carney has served on the NRC committee investigating the ecosystem services aspect of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. In 1977 Dr. Carney earned a Ph.D. in Oceanography from Oregon State University.
CORTIS K. COOPER works for Chevron and is a Fellow, one of 25 elite scientist and engineers in the company. His primarily technical efforts at Chevron have focused on quantifying winds, waves, and currents for operation and design of offshore facilities worldwide including measuring and modeling oil spill fates; modeling hurricane alleys in the Gulf of Mexico; modeling sea level in the Caspian Sea; forecasting the Loop Current in the Gulf of Mexico; supervising major ocean current models in the Gulf of Mexico, W. Africa, NE Atlantic and NW Australia; leading a 32-company joint industry project (JIP) to improve ocean towing; leading the DeepSpill experiment, a $2 million, 24-company JIP that investigated the fate of oil and gas from deepwater blowouts; and is a leader of the API committee that is funding about $10 M of research to resolve lingering questions regarding the use of subsea dispersants. Dr. Cooper was a member of the 2003 National Research Council’s Committee on Oil in the Sea, and has been heavily involved in the physical oceanography of the Gulf of Mexico for 35 years including two terms on the Board of the IOOS Regional Association. Dr. Cooper brings a wealth of relevant skills to the committee, but his grasp of industry standard operating procedure (SOP) and his understanding of oil dispersion under various oceanographic conditions will be most useful. He earned a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from the University of Maine in 1987, and a M.Sc. and B.S. in Civil Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1977 and 1975, respectively.
CHUANMIN HU received his BS degree in physics from the University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China, and the PhD degree in physics (ocean optics) from the University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, in 1997. He is currently Professsor in marine science at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg, Florida, where he directs the Optical Oceanography Laboratory. He has been a principal or a co-principal investigator for over 20 projects funded by the U.S. NASA, NOAA, EPA, and USGS to study river plumes, red tides, water quality, benthic habitats, and connectivity of various ecosystems. He has published more than 130 peer-reviewed journal articles since 2000, many of which were highlighted on journal covers and by various organizations and agencies. His lab at USF maintains a Virtual Antenna System (VAS) and a Virtual Buoy System (VBS) to produce and share various satellite data products.
RUSS LEA is CEO of NEON, Inc. (National Ecological Observatory Network). In his capacity over the last two years he has worked with the science community and the sole sponsors, the National Science Foundation, to deliver an observatory designed to detect and enable forecasting of ecological change at continental scales over multiple decades. Dr. Lea is a professor emeritus at North Carolina State University.
ANTONIO MANNINO is a research oceanographer within the Ocean Ecology Laboratory at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). He was previously a Mendenhall Postdoctoral Fellow research chemist at the U.S. Geological Survey. Dr. Mannino began his career at the University of Texas (M.A. 1994) studying how environmental and ecological factors influence the spatial distribution of macrobenthos community structure. During his tenure at UT, Mannino became interested in the biogeochemistry of dissolved organic matter. At the University of Maryland (Ph.D. 2000), while investigating the chemical composition, sources and reactivity of coastal organic matter, Mannino became interested in linking the optical and chemical properties of organic matter for remote sensing applications. His current work applies field observations, satellite data and 3D coastal models to study carbon cycle processes within estuaries and continental margins. While working as a researcher at NASA since 2002, Dr. Mannino has served as project manager, laboratory manager, co-lead for the Geostationary Coastal and Air Pollution Events (GEO-CAPE) mission formulation ocean science working group, MODIS ocean science team member, chief scientist and technical officer for field campaigns, science PI for engineering studies aimed at developing future ocean color satellite sensors, and mentor for four postdoctoral researchers and numerous summer interns.
RUTH PERRY is a marine scientist specializing in physical and biological oceanography, ocean observing, and policy. Dr. Perry earned a PhD in Oceanography from Texas A&M University and has 10 years of Gulf of Mexico research experience. During her time at TAMU, she focused her research on quantifying the environmental processes affecting Texas marine mammal strandings and understanding physical processes driving Texas coastal hypoxia formation, particularly how to incorporate the use of real-time ocean observing systems, remote sensing, and GIS techniques to quantify the spatiotemporal trends of Gulf environmental hazards (e.g. hypoxia, harmful algal blooms). In 2013, she joined the Gulf of Mexico Coastal Ocean Observing System and her responsibilities included incorporating GIS into ocean observing activities, including statistical mapping of environmental hazards, and on stakeholder engagement and outreach, including K-12 curriculum development. In 2014, Dr. Perry joined Shell as a Marine Science and Regulatory Policy Specialist where she supports Shell Exploration and Production offshore teams in marine science and environmental issues. Her primary role is to integrate marine science and ocean technology into regulatory policy advocacy and decision-making and her specific focus areas include Gulf of Mexico, marine sound, marine spatial planning, ocean observing, and marine mammal and life science.
JONATHAN PORTHOUSE has nearly twenty years of experience in coastal ecosystem planning, research, and management in coastal ecosystems, and is currently a Senior Manager with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. His responsibilities include providing technical review and oversight of projects requesting and receiving funding from the $2.5 billion Gulf Environmental Benefit Fund. He is also responsible for developing, communicating, and ensuring compliance with project monitoring requirements for the program. Mr. Porthouse previously worked for the State of Louisiana to develop basin-level assessments and restoration plans for the State’s vanishing coast, including the Louisiana Coastal Area Ecosystem Restoration Program (an authorized $2 billion partnership with the Army Corps of Engineers) and the State’s first Comprehensive Master Plan for hurricane protection and coastal restoration. He also spent six years as a consultant working on coastal ecosystem restoration projects and programs in Louisiana, California, and the Caribbean. He has extensive expertise in multi-objective environmental planning, adaptive management planning, development of science-based decision support systems, program development, and project management. Jon earned his B.S. in Biology from the State University of New York, Stony Brook in 1993 and earned his M.S. in Marine Science from the University of South Carolina, Columbia in 1996.
NANCY RABALAIS is Executive Director and Professor of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium in Chauvin, Louisiana. Since the mid-1980s, Dr. Rabalais has been studying the dynamics of the large hypoxic region in the Gulf of Mexico, which receives excess nutrients from the Mississippi River. This work includes shipboard monitoring on a large geographic scale and more spatially restricted but more often on two transects, and reliance on other monitoring by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Geological Survey. Since 1989 the hypoxia program has been deploying oxygen sensors, and now has one real-time oxygen monitoring station in coastal waters. She also deployed similar meters in the Barataria Bay estuary, LA. Other routine monitoring, but less frequent now, is for phytoplankton taxonomy and abundance. LUMCON maintains an environmental monitoring system of two stations in Terrebonne Bay, LA. Dr. Rabalais is also the Principal Investigator for the Coastal Waters Consortium, a GoMRI-funded research program. She has served on numerous committees of the National Research Council for the Ocean Studies Board and the Water Science and Technology Board.
PASQUALE “PAT” ROSCIGNO is the Chief of the Office of Environmental Studies for the Gulf of Mexico OCS Region for BOEM. Dr. Roscigno is responsible for managing the Region’s Environmental Studies Program and has over 25 years of experience in managing multi-disciplinary environmental projects. Previously, he held several different research and program management positions with the BOEM and with the Department of Interior's U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He attended Fordham University in New York City.
CHRISTINE SHEPARD is Director of Science for The Nature Conservancy’s Gulf of Mexico Program. Dr. Shepard’s primary research focuses on assessing coastal hazards risk, quantifying the role ecosystems play in reducing risk, and identifying where ecosystem based approaches such as conservation or restoration are likely to be effective for risk reduction. In addition, she works to develop innovative spatial analyses and community engagement tools to help decision makers address coastal risks from climate change and coastal hazards like storms and sea-level rise. She co-authored the 2012 World Risk Report in partnership with United Nations University and was a member of the Department of Interior’s Strategic Science Working Group “Operational Group Sandy” deployed to assist the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force. She completed her Ph.D. in Ocean Science at the University of California-Santa Cruz in 2010 and her B.S. in Zoology and Psychology at the University of Florida in 2002.
KERRY ST. PÉ is the Executive Director of the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program (BTNEP), a nationally recognized effort dedicated to preserving and restoring the 4.2 million-acre area between the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers in Southeast, Louisiana. Mr. St. Pé grew up near the mouth of the Mississippi River in Port Sulphur, Louisiana during the ‘50s and ‘60s where the vast coastal marshes surrounding his home inspired him to become a marine biologist. Mr. St. Pé worked for 23 years as a field biologist and regional coordinator for the Water Pollution Control Division of the Louisiana Departments of Wildlife and Fisheries and Environmental Quality. His work allowed him frequent encounters with the people, marshes, and swamps of the area now known as the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary. Under the Water Pollution Control Division, he investigated water pollution incidents and conducted studies of shell dredging and other environmental impacts in Lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain as well as a major study on the impacts of oilfield brine in coastal La. His oilfield brine study was an important catalyst in getting both state and federal regulations established to stop these discharges to Louisiana water bodies. Mr. St. Pé has directed hundreds of oil spill removal and remediation events in the coastal marshes of southeast Louisiana and has developed nationally-used training courses on diagnosing causes of fish mortalities. His wetland restoration work has been featured in the best-selling book Bayou Farewell, the Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana’s Cajun Coast by Mike Tidwell and in the PBS documentary, Washing Away: Losing Louisiana and the LPB documentary, Turning the Tide. Mr. St. Pé has also received several Outstanding Publication Awards from the Louisiana Wildlife Biologists Association and has twice been awarded (1996, 2006) the Annual Coastal Stewardship Award from the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana. Mr. St. Pé was appointed as the Interim Administrator of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium (LUMCON) from July 2002 to June 2005. Mr. St. Pé was awarded the Gulf Guardian Award in 2009 in the Individual Category by the EPA Gulf of Mexico Program. In May of 2010, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Science by Nicholls State University.
LADON SWANN is Director of the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium (MASGC), and Director of the Auburn University’s Marine Programs. He received BS and MS from Tennessee Technological University and a Ph.D. from Purdue University. Dr. Swann is responsible for implementing practical solutions to coastal issues through competitive research, graduate student training, and extension and outreach and K-12 education in Alabama and Mississippi. He also has over 26 years of experience designing, delivering and evaluating engagement programs addressing local, regional and national needs. He is actively involved in regional engagement through the NOAA Gulf of Mexico Regional Collaboration Team, multiple Gulf of Mexico Alliance priority issues teams. During 2010 and 2011 Dr. Swann served on the Oil Spill Recovery Commissions for Alabama and Mississippi, Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force, and served as a primary point of contact for NOAA’s engagement efforts. In 2012 Dr. Swann served on the Mississippi ‘Go Coast 2020’ oil spill recovery planning effort. Dr. Swann is a member of the Ocean Research Advisory Council and the 2013-2104 President of the National Sea Grant Association. He also served as President of the U.S. Aquaculture Association.
CINDY LEE VAN DOVER is a deep-sea biologist with an interest in the ecology of chemosynthetic ecosystems and deep-sea conservation and environmental management. Dr. Van Dover’s current research focuses on deep-ocean exploration, the study of gene flow and connectivity of deep-sea organisms, deep-sea conservation and environmental management, and, most recently, exploring new models for deep-ocean research through telepresence, distributed research teams of early career scientists, and social media. She has published more than 100 articles in peer-reviewed journals and is an active participant and Chief Scientist in NSF- and NOAA-sponsored field programs to hydrothermal vents and other chemosynthetic environments. Dr. Van Dover was a Fulbright Scholar in France and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She is currently the Harvey W Smith Professor of Biological Oceanography in the Division of Marine Science and Conservation of the Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, where she serves as Chair of the Division and Director of the Marine Laboratory.
KIM WADDELL is a senior program officer with the National Academies’ new Gulf Research Program, after serving 3 years as a study director with the Ocean Studies Board at the same institution in Washington, DC. His recently completed reports include “An Ecosystem Services Approach to Assessing the Impacts of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico” and “Evaluating the Effectiveness of Fish Stock Rebuilding Plans in the United States.” Kim rejoined the National Academies in 2011 after a 6-year hiatus during which he was a research associate professor at the University of the Virgin Islands and Texas A&M University working to build marine and environmental research capacity in the Caribbean region. He received his Ph.D in the Biological Sciences from the University of South Carolina and his B.A. in Environmental Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
SANDRA WERNER received her Ph.D. from the Joint Program in Oceanography/Applied Ocean Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Cambridge/Woods Hole, Massachusetts in 1999. Since 2001, she has worked for ExxonMobil Corporation as a Senior Research Scientist and Environmental and Regulatory Ad-visor. Her areas of expertise include ecosystem services, ecosystem-based management, environmental monitoring, physical oceanography, sediment transport, marine ecological indicators, deepwater and coastal ocean processes.
DAVID YOSKOWITZ is currently Chief Economist for NOAA and is on leave as the Endowed Chair for Socio-Economics at the Harte Research Institute (HRI) at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. His work is focused on elucidating the link between environmental well-being and human well-being and moving practice into policy. Currently he is leading an effort to inventory and value ecosystem services for the Gulf of Mexico region and quantifying the impact of sea-level rise on coastal community resiliency. His work has taken him through much of North and Central America including Cuba, Nicaragua, Belize, El Salvador, and Mexico. He led the effort to produce Gulf 360°: State of the Gulf of Mexico, which was a successful collaboration between governmental, academic, non-governmental organizations, and industry in both the United States and Mexico. Dr. Yoskowitz served on the National Research Council Committee on the Effects of the Deepwater Horizon Mississippi Canyon-252 Oil Spill on Ecosystem Services in the Gulf of Mexico. He currently sits on the SocioEconomic Scientific and Statistical Committee for the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council.
