Jeff Tollefson covers environmental policy for Congressional Quarterly in Washington, D.C. Previously he was a Knight Fellow in Science & Technology Journalism at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a science reporter at the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper, where he won 11 awards for his coverage of Los Alamos National Laboratory and other energy, science and environment stories.
Jon Sutinen is a professor at the University of Rhode Island Department of Environmental & Natural Resource Economics. His primary research interests are fisheries management and regulation with an emphasis on compliance and enforcement. He has extensive experience in international fisheries, including Latin America, Africa, Southeast Asia, and Europe. Most of this experience involved conducting research and supplying advice on fisheries policy. His current research focuses on several bioeconomic aspects of New England marine fisheries and the Northeast Large Marine Ecosystem. Dr. Sutinen was the founding editor of the journal Marine Resource Economics and served in that role for over a decade. He is a member of the NRC's Ocean Studies Board. He earned his Ph.D. in economics in 1973 from the University of Washington.
Andrew Pershing is an Assistant Research Professor of Oceanography in the University of Maine School of Marine Sciences, and also has an appointment with the Gulf of Maine Research Institute as an ecosystem modeler with an emphasis on Gulf of Maine fisheries issues. Dr. Pershing is a leader in the use of computing technology to model and visualize how the ocean environment influences fish and mammal populations over time and to predict potential future population changes. With funding from NOAA and NASA, Pershing is currently leading a project to use plankton abundance models to forecast possible feeding areas of the endangered right whale. He is working with the Cornell Theory Center to develop the computational tools to synthesize multiple data sources and deliver information in a timely manner to right whale researchers and managers. Dr. Pershing has Ph.D. in ecology from Cornell University.
Linda Mercer is Director of the Bureau of Resource Management for the Maine Department of Marine Resources, a position she has held since 1995. Prior to this, she was a Senior Biologist with the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries in Morehead City, NC. She has a MA and PhD in Marine Science from the College of William & Mary, Virginia Institute of Marine Science.
Peter Lord joined the Providence Journal in 1979 and began covering environmental issues two years later. He has traveled to northern Alaska to write about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, to the Shetland Islands to cover an oil spill, and to Belize, Guatemala and Costa Rica to write about development pressures on their forests. In 2002 the U.S. State Department invited Lord to take part in a two-week tour of Brazil, lecturing to journalists and journalism students about environmental journalism. Lord teaches journalism at the University of Rhode Island and serves as a co-director of the Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Journalism at U.R.I. He also is working on a masters degree in Marine Affairs at U.R.I.
Alan Lishness serves as Chief Innovation Officer for the Gulf of Maine Research Institute (GMRI), where he has been employed since 1988. His responsibilities include the design, funding and implementation of innovative programs that utilize computing and communications technologies to teach students and the public about aquatic environments. Since 1993, he has served as a Principal Investigator for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, managing a series of projects that translate NASA Earth Science missions for public audiences on the Web. He currently manages operations for the Cohen Center for Interactive Learning, an immersive science-engagement program that welcomes every fifth or sixth-grader in Maine to GMRI. Prior to joining GMRI, Mr. Lishness held marketing and senior management positions in technology-based start-ups and not-for-profit organizations in Maine. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Association for Research on the Gulf of Maine and the Executive Committee and Board of Directors of the Maine Space Grant Consortium, and presently serves on the Executive Committee and Board of Directors of the Waterfront Alliance and the Board of Directors of the Center for Law and Innovation.
Justin Kenney has been active in environmental communications for the past 15 years. He is currently the senior officer for public affairs at the Pew Charitable Trusts, working with Pew's environment program on climate change, ocean conservation and wilderness protection. Beginning in 1992, he was the communications director for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Marine Sanctuary Program. Later he served as senior policy advisor to commerce secretaries William Daley and Norman Mineta, and as deputy director of communications at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. In 2001 he became director of communications for the Pew Oceans Commission.
Dr. Robert J. Johnston is Associate Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Associate Director of the Sea Grant College Program, University of Connecticut. He holds a BA in economics from Williams College and a Ph.D. in environmental and natural resource economics from the University of Rhode Island. Dr. Johnston serves on the Board of Directors of the Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association and the Marine Resource Economics Foundation. He has published widely on the valuation of non-market resources, the economics of land use, and the economics of coastal and marine resources. He was recently presented with the Research Excellence Award at College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Connecticut, as well as the Faculty Award of Merit in Agriculture. His recent works include an edited book on the economics of land use policy, published by RFF press.
Lewis Incze is director of the Aquatic Systems Group at the University of Southern Maine. His research focuses on the effects of physical processes on biological distributions and rates. Processes of interest extend from the turbulence-scale (cm or smaller) to large-scale current systems that impact feeding and survival of planktonic stages and resulting population recruitment patterns. Dr. Incze is a contributor (with over 40 other scientists) to a Northeast U.S. Climate Change Impact Assessment sponsored by the Union of Concerned Scientists, and is co-leader of the marine impact section. The report will be issued in June 2007. Dr. Incze received his undergraduate degree in Biology from Cornell University, a MS in Oceanography from the University of Maine, and a Ph.D. in Fisheries from the University of Washington.
Dr. Daniel S. Holland is a resource economist with the Gulf of Maine Research Institute (GMRI). He received his Ph.D. in environmental and natural resource economics from the University of Rhode Island in 1998. Dr. Holland joined GMRI in 2005 after spending the prior three years as the senior economist for the New Zealand Seafood Industry Council. Previously Dr. Holland was on the faculty of School for Marine Science and Technology (SMAST), University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and was an industry economist for the Alaska Fisheries Science Center. Dan’s research interests include fishery management, design of fishery access privileges and bioeconomic modeling. He is an associate editor of the journal Marine Resource Economics.
Rita Heimes is Director of the Center for Law & Innovation at the University of Maine School of Law. Founded in 2000, the Center is home to the Maine Patent Program and the Marine Law Institute. Ms. Heimes teaches courses in intellectual property law and oversees the service, education and outreach missions of the Center’s programs. Prior to joining the School of Law, Ms. Heimes practiced corporate law and litigation, specializing in intellectual property and environmental law matters, at firms in Seattle, Boulder, and Portland. She received her BA in Journalism from the University of Iowa and her JD from Drake University Law School.
Kevin Friedland is a researcher with the National Marine Fisheries Service at the Narragansett Laboratory in Rhode Island. He holds a bachelors degree in ecology from Rutgers College in New Jersey and a doctorate from the College of William and Mary in Virginia. His dissertation research was on the distribution and feeding ecology of Atlantic menhaden. During his professional career he has done research on menhaden, bluefish, sea herring, sturgeon, eel, haddock, and salmon. His publications cover a range of topics including: estuarine ecology of fishes, functional morphology, feeding ecology, recruitment processes, fisheries oceanography, and stock identification. His current research is on the effects of growth on the early maturation and survival of Atlantic salmon and the factors controlling the recruitment of haddock. Dr. Friedland has served as chair of several ICES committees including the North Atlantic Salmon Working Group, the Study Group on Stock Identification, and the ICES standing committee on Anadromous and Catadromous Fishes.
Jerry Fraser worked as a commercial fisherman, running draggers off Maine for eight years before taking a full-time newspaper job in 1987. He has been an editor or a reporter at the York County Coast Star in Kennebunk, Maine, the Portsmouth (N.H) Herald, Florida Today and The Boston Globe. He became senior editor of National Fisherman in 1997, editor-in-chief in 1999 and assumed the title of publisher in 2005. He lives in Wells, Maine.
Meinhard Doelle, BSc (Chemistry), LLB (Dalhousie), LLM (Osgoode Hall), JSD (Dalhousie), is a full time faculty member at Dalhousie Law School, specializing in environmental law. From 1996 to 2001, he was the Executive Director of Clean Nova Scotia, with a mandate to pursue an environmentally healthy and sustainable society in Nova Scotia. From 1990 to 1996 he practiced environmental law in Nova Scotia and was involved in drafting the NS Environment Act. He currently serves as environmental counsel to the Atlantic Canada law firm of Stewart McKelvey. From 2000 to 2006, Prof. Doelle was a non-governmental member of the Canadian delegation to the UN climate change negotiations. Prof. Doelle has written on a variety of environmental law topics, including climate change, invasive species, environmental assessments, and public participation in environmental decision making. His most recent books are entitled “From Hot Air to Action: Climate Change, Compliance and the Future of International Environmental Law,” and “The Canadian Environmental Protection Act & Commentary.
Bill Brennan is Deputy Assistant for International Affairs with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, leading NOAA’s international efforts associated with the global oceans, atmosphere, and space. His position involves understanding and predicting changes in the Earth’s environment, conserving and managing coastal resources, protecting life and property, and providing decision makers with reliable scientific information. Dr. Brennan was also recently designated to serve as the Acting Director of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, an interagency program that coordinates and integrates scientific research on changes in climate and related systems. Early in his 26-year career in marine and environmental policy matters, Dr. Brennan served in a senior staff position with the U.S. House of Representatives working on issues before the Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee. For eight years, he was the Commissioner of the Maine Department of Marine Resources. Dr. Brennan has been appointed to the boards of the New England Fishery Management Council, the Aquaculture and Marine Technology Board, and the Maine Oil Spill Advisory committee. Dr. Brennan holds a BS in Marine Biology from the University of Maine, an MA in Marine Affairs from the University of Rhode Island, and a PhD in Ecology and Environmental Sciences from the University of Maine.
Brian Bergstein is a national technology correspondent for Associated Press, based in Boston. His work focuses on the social, political and business implications of technology. Mr. Bergstein spent two years as AP's Silicon Valley correspondent, and in 2004-2005 was a Knight Fellow for Science and Technology Journalism at MIT. He has also taught feature writing in the journalism school at Boston University.
Scheherazade Fowler is a freelance writer with a strong background in social networking and new media. She has been blogging for four years, and has worked at Pop!Tech, LexThink, and other conferences to facilitate the exchange of ideas between audience members and speakers.
Scheherazade has a law degree from the University of Maine School of Law and is a past advisory board member of the Center for Law & Innovation. She is also a lifelong sailor with strong ties to the Gulf of Maine. She currently coaches the Bowdoin College Sailing Team. She got her undergraduate degree in Geology from Yale University.
