VICE PRESIDENT, Applied Marine Sciences
When a whale carcass washes up it’s an opportunity to learn about pollution out in the ocean. My skills with “ultra-clean” lab techniques landed me jobs sampling whales in the early 1990s. The canoe ride to a whale on the Emeryville flats was nothing compared to crossing the Golden Gate channel to a whale near Diablo Point. That required an ocean-going zodiac, a dry suit to keep from freezing and an iron stomach. On the docks of the Tiburon marine laboratory I assisted in a full dissection of a grey whale. I positioned myself upwind as often as possible.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, Center for Ecosystem Management and Restoration (CEMAR)
Working with engineering partners we developed designs to modify barriers like bridge supports that prevented salmon and steelhead from migrating to the streams where they were born. Absent for over 50 years, you can now see them thriving in Napa River, Sonoma Creek and other Bay Area waters.
PROJECT LEADER, Regional Monitoring Program San Francisco Bay
I pulled together a team of scientists from UC Santa Cruz and other labs to beat out two goliath consulting firms. Our prize was to provide the state for the first time with regular credible measurements of water quality at the parts per billion level. We boated out with coolers of clams, mussels, oysters to different locations in the Bay Area and suspended them in cages below the surface. Months and many trips later, these filter-feeders (plus samples from bay mud and water) yielded 40,000 data points and valuable clues for regulating contaminants in the bay.
Taking a whale sample so that EPA scientists could test its blubber for toxic chemicals
Roped together for safety due to zero visibility at depth, divers deploy caged clams as pollution monitors
VICE PRESIDENT, Applied Marine Sciences
When a whale carcass washes up it’s an opportunity to learn about pollution out in the ocean. My skills with “ultra-clean” lab techniques landed me jobs sampling whales in the early 1990s. The canoe ride to a whale on the Emeryville flats was nothing compared to crossing the Golden Gate channel to a whale near Diablo Point. That required an ocean-going zodiac, a dry suit to keep from freezing and an iron stomach. On the docks of the Tiburon marine laboratory I assisted in a full dissection of a grey whale. I positioned myself upwind as often as possible.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, Center for Ecosystem Management and Restoration (CEMAR)
Working with engineering partners we developed designs to modify barriers like bridge supports that prevented salmon and steelhead from migrating to the streams where they were born. Absent for over 50 years, you can now see them thriving in Napa River, Sonoma Creek and other Bay Area waters.
PROJECT LEADER, Regional Monitoring Program San Francisco Bay
I pulled together a team of scientists from UC Santa Cruz and other labs to beat out two goliath consulting firms. Our prize was to provide the state for the first time with regular credible measurements of water quality at the parts per billion level. We boated out with coolers of clams, mussels, oysters to different locations in the Bay Area and suspended them in cages below the surface. Months and many trips later, these filter-feeders (plus samples from bay mud and water) yielded 40,000 data points and valuable clues for regulating contaminants in the bay.
Taking a whale sample so that EPA scientists could test its blubber for toxic chemicals
Roped together for safety due to zero visibility at depth, divers deploy caged clams as pollution monitors