Appendix D

Committee Biographies

Berrin Tansel (Chair) is an environmental engineer, researcher, author, educator, and professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department of Florida International University (FIU). Before joining FIU, Dr. Tansel was a project manager at Massachusetts Water Resources Authority on the Boston Harbor cleanup project. Dr. Tansel’s areas of expertise include coastal infrastructure, water pollution, adaptation for climate change in coastal areas, coastal hazards, fate and transport of contaminants in coastal environments, ecosystem services, hazardous waste management, and site remediation. Dr. Tansel is an elected Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), elected Diplomate of American Academy of Water Resources Engineers, and board-certified environmental engineer by the American Academy of Environmental Engineers and Scientists. She is a member of the Water Environment Federation, the Environmental and Water Resources Institute of ASCE, and the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors. Dr. Tansel is the editor in chief of the Journal of Environmental Challenges and was co-editor in chief of the Journal of Environmental Management. Dr. Tansel is the recipient of the 2021 Science Award from the American Academy of Environmental Engineers and Scientists, 2021 Margaret Peterson Awards from ASCE, 2009 Edmund Freidman Professional Achievement Award from ASCE, 2007 Engineer of the Year from the ASCE Miami-Dade Branch, and the Kika E. de la Garza Fellowship from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Dr. Tansel serves on the Environmental Engineering Council of the National Council of Examiners for Engineering & Surveying, and on the Board of Trustees for the American Academy of Water Resources Engineers. She is a registered professional engineer in Florida. Dr. Tansel holds Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in environmental engineering from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Victoria Broje is an internationally recognized specialist with 20 years of experience in environmental science, emergency planning and response, research projects, and outreach. She received her master’s degree in offshore engineering in 2001 from the Saint Petersburg State Technical University in Russia where she specialized in modeling oil spill behavior and response measures under Arctic conditions. She received her doctoral degree in environmental science and management in 2006 from the University of California at Santa Barbara. Her dissertation focused on mechanical recovery of oil spills and resulted in a patented skimming technology which later won the Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X-Challenge. Since 2006, Dr. Broje has been supporting Shell businesses worldwide as a subject-matter expert for spill response technologies, research projects, and environmental impact assessments. Dr. Broje represents Shell on American Petroleum Institute (API), International Association of Oil & Gas Producers, Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, and Ipieca committees developing best practices in emergency response and environmental protection. She also frequently advises academic and governmental projects. She is chair of the Board of the Clean Caribbean and Americas, a nonprofit organization dedicated to outreach on spill response and environmental topics. She also chairs the API Science and Technology Working Group for oil spill prevention and response. In 2013, Dr. Broje served on the National Academies committee that produced the Letter Report on A Review of Genwest’s Final Report on Effective Daily Recovery Capacity (EDRC). She is currently serving on the National Academies committee developing the report on Oil in the Sea IV: Inputs, Fates, and Effects.

Brian House recently retired as president and chief executive officer of Moran Environmental Recovery LLC, a nationally recognized oil spill removal organization holding Worst Case Discharge Tier III classification for the inland and river/canal environments across numerous U.S. Captain of the Port sectors, as well as a classification for non-floating oils. He is also a past president and chair of the Government Affairs Committee of the Spill Control Association of America, the largest and most notable industry trade group

representing the interests of the spill response community. Mr. House served as the oil spill response industry advisor and team member on the Incident Specific Preparedness Review for the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, released in January 2011. Subsequent to that report, he provided industry input to a number of cross-agency workgroups focused on matters involving potential improvement of the nation’s response regime. Mr. House holds a B.S. degree from Bates College and has 36 years of experience in the management of oil spill response activities. He also holds a graduate certificate in environmental policy from the University of Massachusetts.

W. Scott Pegau serves as the research program manager for the Oil Spill Recovery Institute. His duties include searching for the best research and development projects that can improve oil spill recovery in arctic and subarctic marine waters. This involves understanding the capabilities of existing oil spill response equipment and how it is used. He also serves as crew and alternate captain on a fishing vessel that is contracted for rapid response to oil spills in Prince William Sound. He trains annually and performs drills in nearshore and offshore response. This allows him to train on many of the response tactics used in the nearshore environment and provides first-hand knowledge of the equipment used during spill response. He has a background in oceanography with a Ph.D. from Oregon State University and a B.S. in physics from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The oceanography training includes fluid dynamics, which provides a basic understanding of oil spill trajectory modeling. He also had basic training on National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s GNOME oil spill trajectory model.

Malcolm L. Spaulding is professor emeritus, Ocean Engineering, University of Rhode Island, and principal, Spaulding Environmental Sciences LLC. He served for 40 years on the faculty and over a decade as department chair, before retiring in 2011. He founded Applied Science Associates Inc. in 1979 and served in various leadership and technical roles through 2014. Dr. Spaulding specializes in numerical modeling of nearshore and coastal processes of estuarine, coastal, and continental shelf regions to include hydrodynamics, waves, sediment transport, and oil and chemical spill transport and fate. He is internationally recognized for his work in developing and applying oil transport and fate models for spills, including blowouts, in both temperate and arctic waters. In 2018, he was named a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers in recognition of his contributions in marine environmental modeling. Dr. Spaulding served on the National Research Council’s (NRC’s) Marine Board and as liaison to the Ocean Studies Board from 1996 to 2001. He has been a member of numerous NRC committees including those on heavy oil spills, environmental studies programs to support offshore energy development, and risk assessment of oil barge spills.

William Stafford is the director of engineering services at Marine Spill Response Corporation. In this role he provides overall technical leadership to the organization. His professional experience spans many aspects of marine systems engineering on a wide variety of vessels. His current work focuses on the concept development, evaluation, and maintenance of oil spill response platforms, equipment, and recovery systems. His recent projects include a retrofit of response vessels for improved safety performance and development of several concept designs for skimming barges and vessels. He has significant experience using regulatory planning tools to evaluate recovery system performance. He is a member of the ASTM Committee F-20 on Hazardous Substances and Oil Spill Response. He received a B.S. in marine engineering systems from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy and M.S. in ocean technology and commerce from the Webb Institute.