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Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Committee Biographies." National Research Council. 2012. Scientific Review of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement: Drakes Bay Oyster Company Special Use Permit. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13461.
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APPENDIX B

Committee Biographies

Thomas C. Malone, (Chair), received a Ph.D. (biology) from Stanford University, a M.S. (oceanography) from the University of Hawaii, and a B.A. (zoology) from Colorado College. He has held faculty appointments at The City College of New York, Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory of Columbia University, and the Oceanographic Division of Brookhaven National Laboratory. Dr. Malone has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers on phytoplankton ecology, coastal eutrophication, science and ocean policy, and integrated ocean observing systems. Currently, he is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES). During his tenure at UMCES, Dr. Malone served as Interim President of UMCES (1988-1990); Director of the Horn Point Laboratory of UMCES (1990-2001); Director, EPA Multiscale Experimental Ecosystem Research Center (1992-1996); President of the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography (1998-2000); Chair, IOC-WMO-UNEP-ICSU Coastal Global Ocean Observing System Panel (1998-2000); Chair, Heinz Center Technical Committee on Indicators of Coastal and Ocean Ecosystem Condition (2000-2004); Co-Chair, IOC-WMO-UNEP-ICSU Coastal Ocean Observations Panel (2002-2005); Director of the Ocean. US Office for Sustained and Integrated Ocean Observations (2003-2006); Council Member, Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science (2005-2010). In addition, he has served on four NRC committees, including as chair of the committee on the Assessment of Regional Marine Research Programs. He has also served on the Steering committees for many workshops over the last 20 years, most recently for a FLAD-NOAA-IOC Conference on A Unified Approach for Sustainability in a Changing World: From Ocean Policy to Observations sponsored by NOAA, the Luso-American Foundation, and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission. Dr. Malone received the University of Maryland Reagent’s Award for outstanding public service in 2002 and The Colorado College Louis T. Benezet Award for “outstanding achievement in one's chosen field, excellence through unusual success or contribution, and research that has advanced a profession and improved people's lives” in 2003.

Joao Ferreira is a tenured Associate Professor with the Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Faculty of Sciences and Technology at the New University of Lisbon. His areas of expertise include water quality and ecological modeling solutions (both turnkey and cooperative development), Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) work, database development in coastal management projects, management for transitional and coastal waters, and water related web projects, dynamic linkage to databases, and software solutions. Dr. Ferreira received his B.Sc. with honors in Biology (with Oceanography) from Southampton University, United Kingdom, and his Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences from the New University of Lisbon.

W. Michael Hanemann joined the ASU Department of Economics and the Center for Environmental Economics and Sustainability Policy in 2011 where is a Wrigley Chair in Sustainability. He came to ASU from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was a Chancellor's Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resources Economics and the Goldman School of Public Policy. His research interests include non-market valuation, the economics of water and of climate change, environmental policy, adaptive management, and demand modeling for market research. Dr. Hanemann has served on many NRC committees and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2011. He is currently a lead author and a contributing lead author for Working Group III of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report on Climate Change. Dr. Hanemann received his B.A. degree from Oxford University in philosophy, politics, and economics, his M.S. from the London School of Economics in development economics, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University in Public Finance and Decision Theory and Economics. He received an honorary Ph.D. from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and the Lifetime Award for Outstanding Achievement from the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists. He is an inaugural Fellow of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists and a Fellow of the American Association of Agricultural Economics.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Committee Biographies." National Research Council. 2012. Scientific Review of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement: Drakes Bay Oyster Company Special Use Permit. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13461.
×

Evamaria Koch is an Associate Professor at Horn Point Laboratory at the University of Maryland’s Center for Environmental Science. Her areas of expertise include seagrass ecology, hydrodynamically-mediated processes in seagrass beds and coastal plant communities in a globally-changing world. Projects she is currently working on include the impact of coastal structures on submersed aquatic vegetation, and habitat requirements needed to improve seagrass restoration, especially the sediment they colonize. She is also working on conditions necessary for the successful recruitment and establishment of seagrass seeds. She is a member of the Estuarine Research Federation, the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography, the American Geological Union, and Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society. She previously worked on the NRC Committee on Mitigating Shore Erosion Along Sheltered Coasts. Dr. Koch received her Ph.D. in Marine Science from the University of South Florida.

Jennifer Miksis-Olds is a Senior Research Associate in the Applied Research Laboratory at Penn State University. She is also an Assistant Professor in the Graduate Program in Acoustics, College of Engineering and in Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences in the College of Agriculture. Her research employs acoustic methodologies to answer biological questions in both the marine and terrestrial environments. Her primary interests include animal behavior and communication, the effect of anthropogenic activities on animals and their environment, and the development of technology to observe animals in their natural environment. Aspects of acoustics, biology, oceanography, ecology, and engineering are combined to create the interdisciplinary approach necessary to extend the study of animals in their natural environment beyond where it is today. Dr. Miksis-Olds received her A.B. cum laude in Biology from Harvard University, her M.S. in Biology from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, she was a guest student at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and then received her Ph.D. in Biological Oceanography from the University of Rhode Island.

Bryan Pijanowski is a Professor in the Department of Forestry and Natural Resources at Purdue University. He is interested in the impacts of land use and climate change on ecosystem services. He is leading an effort to study the soundscape in diverse ecosystems and how natural and man-made sounds interact. Dr. Pijanowski has numerous publications and is a member of the Global Land Project, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Association of Geographers, the American Geophysical Union, and the International Association of Landscape Ecology. He received his B.S. in Biology from Hope College and his Ph.D. in Zoology from Michigan State University. Presently, he has been working on the development and application of spatial models for use in natural resource management, and is interested in land use/cover change and climate change and how these impact societies.

Jennifer Ruesink is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Washington. Her areas of interest include marine community ecology, especially food web interactions; species invasions; and conservation. In particular, she looks at the interactions between oysters and nonnative oyster drills as well as the impact of aquaculture on the natural habitat, including eelgrass. She is currently a member of the Ecological Society of America, the National Shellfisheries Association, the Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation, and the Western Society of Naturalists. She has served on two previous NRC committees. Dr. Ruesink received her B.A. in Biology, Summa Cum Laude (Cornell University); her M.Phil. in Botany (Cambridge University, England); and her Ph.D. in Zoology (University of Washington).

Charles Simenstad is a Research Professor at the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington. He studies shallow-water community and food web structure, and restoration ecology, of estuarine and coastal marine ecosystems along the Pacific Northwest coast, from San Francisco Bay, the Oregon and Washington coasts, Puget Sound, and Alaska. Ecosystems that have especially attracted his interests include: coastal marshes, mudflats and eelgrass of Pacific Northwest estuaries; nearshore, kelpdominated shores of the Aleutian Islands, Alaska; and San Francisco Bay-Delta. Since 1990, he has been particularly dedicated to coordinating the Wetland Ecosystem Team (WET), a small team of research scientists, educators, and graduate students that conducts both basic and applied research on these topics. Current research initiatives include: leading WET's CALFED research on tidal freshwater wetland restoration patterns and rates in the Sacramento-San Joaquin rivers delta (BREACH studies);

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Committee Biographies." National Research Council. 2012. Scientific Review of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement: Drakes Bay Oyster Company Special Use Permit. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13461.
×

evaluating the importance of estuarine life history diversity of juvenile Pacific salmon in population resilience and recovery, and the potential role of estuarine habitat restoration in increasing life history diversity; restoration of natural ecosystem processes as a sustainable approach to recovery of endangered salmon; and the practical application of landscape ecology concepts and quantitative metrics to planning and implementing coastal ecosystem restoration. Much of Simenstad’s concentration is presently focused on strategic planning restoration of nearshore ecosystems in Puget Sound under the Puget Sound Nearshore Ecosystem Restoration Project (PSNERP), under which he chairs the Nearshore Science Team (NST). Simenstad previously served on the NRC Committee on Mitigating Wetland Losses.

Lucinda Low Swartz, Esq., is a nationally known NEPA specialist providing extensive NEPA compliance services to federal agencies and private entities. She is a regular speaker on NEPA issues at environmental conferences and training seminars and is the co-author of The NEPA Reference Guide and Endangered Species: Legal Requirements and Policy Guidance. Ms. Swartz is also the former Deputy General Counsel of the Council on Environmental Quality, the office within the Executive Office of the President that oversees federal agency compliance with NEPA. With over 30 years of experience in environmental law and regulation in government and consulting, she has been operating her small, woman-owned business since May 2008. She received her J.D. from the Washington College of Law, The American University.

Paul Thompson is the chair in Zoology at the Institute of Biological and Environmental Sciences at the University of Aberdeen. He established the Lighthouse Field Station in 1990 after he completed his graduate and postdoctoral studies in Aberdeen. He became a Lecturer in 1994, and has held a Personal Chair in Zoology since 2005. His current research aims to assess how natural and anthropogenic environmental variations influence the behavior, physiology, and dynamics of marine mammal and seabird populations. These questions have been approached by conducting long-term and comparative studies of key populations such as dolphins, harbor seals, and seabirds. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2011, and is currently a member of the Marine Scotland Science Advisory Board. Professor Thompson previously served on the NRC study Best Practices for Shellfish Mariculture and the Effects of Commercial Activities in Drake's Estero, Pt. Reyes National Seashore, California. He received his Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of Aberdeen.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Committee Biographies." National Research Council. 2012. Scientific Review of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement: Drakes Bay Oyster Company Special Use Permit. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13461.
×

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Committee Biographies." National Research Council. 2012. Scientific Review of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement: Drakes Bay Oyster Company Special Use Permit. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13461.
×
Page 65
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Committee Biographies." National Research Council. 2012. Scientific Review of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement: Drakes Bay Oyster Company Special Use Permit. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13461.
×
Page 66
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Committee Biographies." National Research Council. 2012. Scientific Review of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement: Drakes Bay Oyster Company Special Use Permit. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13461.
×
Page 67
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Committee Biographies." National Research Council. 2012. Scientific Review of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement: Drakes Bay Oyster Company Special Use Permit. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13461.
×
Page 68
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In May 2012, the National Park Service (NPS) asked the National Research Council to conduct a scientific review of a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) to evaluate the effects of issuing a Special Use Permit for the commercial shellfish operation in Drakes Estero for a ten year time span. Drakes Bay Oyster Company (DBOC) currently operates the shellfish farm in Drakes Estero, part of Point Reyes National Seashore, under a reservation of use and occupancy that will expire on November 30, 2012 if a new Special Use Permit is not issued. Congress granted the Secretary of the Interior the discretionary authority to issue a new ten year Special Use Permit in 2009; hence, the Secretary now has the option to proceed with or delay the conversion of Drakes Estero to wilderness. To inform this decision, the NPS drafted an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the DBOC Special Use Permit. Under the National Environmental policy Act (NEPA), as EIS is prepared to inform the public and agency decision-makers regarding the potential environmental impacts of a proposed federal action and reasonable alternatives. The Department of the Interior commissioned a peer review of the DEIS that was released in March 2012.

Scientific Review of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement: Drakes Bay Oyster Company Special Use Permit reviews the scientific information presented in the DEIS that is used to determine the potential environmental impacts of a ten year extension of DBOC operations. In particular, this report responds to the following tasks given to the committee: assess the scientific information, analysis, and conclusions presented in the DEIS for Drakes Bay Oyster Company Special Use Permit, and evaluate whether the peer review of the DEIS is fundamentally sound and materially sufficient. Scientific Review of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement: Drakes Bay Oyster Company Special Use Permit focuses on eight of twelve resource categories considered in the DEIS: wetlands, eelgrass, wildlife and wildlife habitat, special-status species, coastal flood zones, soundscapes, water quality, and socioeconomic resources.
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