B
Committee and Staff Biographies
COMMITTEE
Charles (Pete) Peterson (Chair) is an alumni distinguished professor in the Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Peterson earned a Ph.D. in biology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1972. His research can be characterized as interdisciplinary marine conservation ecology. His specializations involve marine benthic ecology, including the importance and nature of predation and intra- and inter-specific competition in benthic communities and the role of resource limitation in suspension-feeding bivalve populations. He also conducts research in paleoecology, invertebrate fisheries management, estuarine habitat evaluation, and barrier island ecology. Dr. Peterson has served on numerous NRC committees.
Barry Costa-Pierce is the director of the Rhode Island Sea Grant College Program and a joint professor of fisheries, aquaculture and oceanography at the University of Rhode Island. Dr. Costa-Pierce earned a Ph.D. in oceanography from the University of Hawaii. His research focuses on capture-based aquaculture systems; on the environmental impacts and systems ecology of aquaculture ecosystems; and on the development of scientifically credible sustainability indices for mariculture projects worldwide. Dr. Costa-Pierce is on the Board of Directors of the World Aquaculture Society and is also one of the four international editors of Aquaculture.
Brett Dumbauld is an ecologist at the Agricultural Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Dr. Dumbauld earned a Ph.D. in fisheries from the University of Washington. His research focuses on solving the problem shellfish growers have with burrowing shrimp and investigating the role of shellfish aquaculture in the estuarine environment. He is a member of the National Shellfisheries Association, the Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation, the Pacific Estuarine Research Society, and the Society for Conservation Biology.
Carolyn Friedman is an associate professor in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences at the University of Washington. Dr. Friedman earned a Ph.D. in comparative pathology from the University of California, Davis. Her research focuses on the examination of infectious and non-infectious diseases of wild and cultured marine invertebrates and on the conservation of marine invertebrates, particularly abalone. More specifically, she investigates the mass mortality of the Pacific oyster (Crassostrea gigas) on the west coast of the United States and the herpes-like viral infection of Pacific oysters.
Eileen Hofmann is a professor of oceanography in the Center for Coastal Physical Oceanography at Old Dominion University. Dr. Hofmann earned a Ph.D. in marine science and engineering from North Carolina State University. Her research focuses on the analysis and modeling of biological and physical interactions in marine ecosystems and descriptive physical oceanography. She served on the Ocean Studies Board and on numerous NRC committees, including the Committee on Strategic Advice on the U.S. Climate Change Science Program.
Hauke Kite-Powell is a research specialist at the Marine Policy Center of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Dr. Kite-Powell earned his Ph.D. in ocean systems management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research focuses on public and private sector management issues for marine resources and the economic activities that depend on them. His current research projects include the policy issues surrounding use of ocean space for non-traditional activities, such as aquaculture and wind power; the potential of shellfish aquaculture to contribute to nutrient level management in coastal water bodies; the economics and management of marine aquaculture operations; and the environmental and ecological implications of long-term growth in marine aquaculture industries. Dr. Kite-Powell served on the NRC Committee on Assessment of Technical Issues in the Automated Nautical Chart System.
Donal Manahan is a professor of biological sciences at the University of Southern California. Dr. Manahan earned a Ph.D. in marine biology from the University of Wales, Bangor. His research focuses on animal environmental physiology; biological adaptations to temperature and food; marine biology of temperate, polar, tropical, and deep-sea species; Antarctic marine biology; hydrothermal vent biology; developmental biology; evolutionary biology; marine invertebrate life history; larval ecology; and aquaculture. Dr. Manahan has served on NRC committees and as the Chair of the Polar Research Board.
Francis O’Beirn is the benthos ecology team leader at the Marine Institute in Galway, Ireland. Dr. O’Beirn earned a Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Georgia. His research interests focus on benthic ecology and monitoring, bivalve biology, as well as finfish and shellfish mariculture. He sits on a number of advisory committees responsible for licensing of marine activities in Ireland. He is currently the Chair of the International Council for Exploration of the Seas’ (ICES) Working Group on Environmental Interactions of Mariculture and is the Irish delegate to the ICES mariculture committee. Dr. O’Beirn also has experience with shellfish mariculture and habitat restoration in the Chesapeake Bay area and the southeastern United States.
Robert Paine is a professor emeritus in the Department of Biology at the University of Washington. Dr. Paine earned a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1961. His research focuses on experimental ecology of organisms on rocky shores, interrelationships between species in an ecosystem, and the organization and structure of marine communities. He has examined the roles of predation and disturbance in promoting coexistence and biodiversity. Dr. Paine is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and was a member of the Ocean Studies Board. He has served on numerous NRC committees, including the Committee on Ecosystem Effects of Fishing.
Paul Thompson has a Personal Chair in Zoology in the University of Aberdeen’s School of Biological Sciences, and is Director of the Lighthouse Field Station, Cromarty, Scotland, which he set up in 1989. Dr. Thompson earned a Ph.D. in marine mammal ecology from the University of Aberdeen. He has been researching marine mammal behavior and ecology, including harbor and gray seals, for 20 years. His current research aims to assess how natural and anthropogenic environmental variations influence the behavior, physiology, and dynamics of marine mammal and seabird populations. Topics of particular interest have included interactions between wildlife populations and fisheries, the impact of
disturbance and contaminants on marine mammal biology, seal foraging and breeding strategies, and the effects of changing prey stocks and climate change on the population dynamics of marine top predators. Dr. Thompson is a member of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Seal Specialist Group, the Scottish Association of Marine Sciences, among others.
Robert Whitlatch is a professor of marine sciences at the University of Connecticut. He earned a B.S. in zoology, an M.S. in marine sciences, and a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Utah, the University of the Pacific, and the University of Chicago, respectively. Dr. Whitlatch is a benthic ecologist interested in animal–sediment relationships, trophic dynamics of deposit-feeding invertebrates, life history analysis, shellfish ecology, the ecology of invasive species, and community ecology. He has worked extensively on both oyster reef biology and on the ecology of nonnative species in coastal New England. Dr. Whitlatch served on the NRC’s Committee on Nonnative Oysters in the Chesapeake Bay.
STAFF
Jodi Bostrom is an associate program officer with the Ocean Studies Board. She earned an M.S. in environmental science from American University in 2006 and a B.S. in zoology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1998. Since starting with the Ocean Studies Board in May 1999, Ms. Bostrom has worked on several studies pertaining to coastal restoration, fisheries, marine mammals, nutrient over-enrichment, ocean exploration, capacity building, and marine debris.
Susan Roberts became the director of the Ocean Studies Board in April 2004. Dr. Roberts received her Ph.D. in marine biology from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. She worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley and as a senior staff fellow at the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Roberts’ past research experience has included fish muscle physiology and biochemistry, marine bacterial symbioses, and developmental cell biology. She has directed a number of studies for the Ocean Studies Board including Nonnative Oysters in the Chesapeake Bay (2004); Decline of the Steller Sea Lion in Alaskan Waters: Untangling Food Webs and Fishing Nets (2003); Effects of Trawling & Dredging on Seafloor Habitat (2002); Marine Protected Areas: Tools for Sustaining Ocean Ecosystems (2001); Under the Weather: Climate, Ecosystems, and Infectious Disease (2001); Bridging Boundaries Through Regional Marine Research (2000); and From Monsoons to Microbes: Understanding the Ocean’s Role in Human
Health (1999). Dr. Roberts specializes in the science and management of living marine resources.
Jeremy Justice is a senior program assistant with the Ocean Studies Board. He received his B.A. degree in international and area studies from the University of Oklahoma in 2008. Since joining the National Academies staff in October 2008, Mr. Justice has worked on Science at Sea: Meeting Future Oceanographic Goals with a Robust Academic Research Fleet in addition to this report.
