Meet the Scientists: S

Raymond Sambrotto Columbia University email

Raymond Sambrotto is a marine plankton ecologist and biogeochemist. His work focuses mainly on the interaction between the ocean’s microbial life and its chemical makeup. In recent years, there has been significant progress in understanding the global role of the ocean ecosystem that covers 70% of the Earth. However, critical questions remain such as how this system interacts with climate variation and with the addition of pollutants from human activities.

Sambrotto has worked in most of the major regions of the ocean and the BEST-BSIERP work is a return to research on the Bering Sea where he began his oceanographic studies. He is currently a Doherty Research Scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University.

Astrid Scholz Ecotrust email

Astrid Scholz is Vice President for Knowledge Systems at Ecotrust, a Portland, OR-based conservation organization committed to building a future that strengthens communities and the environment from Alaska to California. Responsible for managing Ecotrust’s analytical, technical and cartographic capacities, she oversees a staff of 17 and a variety of projects that link the social, economic and ecological systems of the bioregion.

Astrid is an affiliate faculty member of Oregon State University’s College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, and is the co-editor of a book on integrated marine geographic information systems, Place Matters, published by OSU Press in spring 2005. She serves on the boards of the Pacific Marine Conservation Council, Habitat Media and the Living Oceans Society, and serves as a member of the Master Plan Science Advisory Team to the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative in California.

She received her MA in Economics and Philosophy from the University of St. Andrews, her MSc in Economics from the University of Bristol, and her PhD in Energy and Resources from the University of California, Berkeley.

Jennifer Sepez NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center email

Jennifer Sepez is an anthropologist at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center for NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service and an Affiliate Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Washington. She got her start in fisheries in 1987 on the night shift slime line at Sea Hawk Seafoods in Valdez, Alaska, eventually working her way up to Dock Foreman.

Following the Exxon Valdez oil spill, she joined the Alaska Department of Fish and Game working on commercial fisheries research, oil spill impact assessment, and subsistence research. She earned a master's degree (1996) in Cultural Anthropology and a doctorate (2001) in Environmental Anthropology at the University of Washington. Her doctoral work centered on marine and terrestrial subsistence practices of the Makah Tribe at the time of their resumption of whale hunting.

Since joining the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, her research has focused on human relationships with marine resources, including commercial, recreational, and subsistence fisheries and marine mammals. For example, recent projects include analysis of Alaska Native traditional knowledge of marine species, demographic trends in coastal communities of the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska, historical ecology of Makah foraging patterns, human interactions with wild spinner dolphins in the main Hawaiian Islands, profiles of North Pacific fishing communities, and quantitative indicators-based modeling of community-level fisheries participation. She has worked on or advised local and traditional knowledge projects in Alaska, Mexico, and Maine.

She has been involved with the Journal of Ethnobiology (as an editorial assistant) and a traditional knowledge issue of Practicing Anthropology (as Guest Editor), as well as publishing in Polar Geography, Human Organization, National Association for the Practice of Anthropology Bulletin, Oregon Humanities and Northwest Science.

Barry and Evelyn Sherr Oregon State University email (Barry); email (Ev)

Barry and Evelyn Sherr are a husband/wife research team interested in the roles of heterotrophic microbes, including bacteria and phagotrophic protists, in the structure, functioning, and biochemical pathways of planktonic food webs.

Barry received his PhD in ecology from the University of Georgia in 1977 and was a postdoctoral scholar in the UGA Department of Microbiology from 1978 to 1979, with a research focus on denitrification in salt marsh estuaries. Ev received her PhD in zoology from Duke University in 1974 with an oceanographic study of nutrient and phytoplankton distributions over the Southeastern Atlantic continental shelf off Georgia. From 1974 to 1979, Ev worked at the University of Georgia Marine Institute on carbon and nitrogen flows in salt marsh estuaries.

Barry and Ev collaborated on postdoctoral research at the Kinneret Limnological Laboratory in Israel from 1979 to 1981, and worked together as Research Associates at the University of Georgia Marine Institute from 1981 to 1990, focusing on bacterivorous and herbivorous protists in marine systems. They came to the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University in 1990, where they share one position and are currently full professors who teach graduate courses in marine microbiology and biological oceanography. They have participated in several multi-disciplinary research programs in the Arctic Ocean since 1994, including the Arctic Ocean Section (1994), Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean (1997-1998), Shelf-Basin Interactions (2002-2004), and Study of North Alaskan Coastal Systems (2005-2006).

David Shull Western Washington University email

David Shull is an associate professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences at Western Washington University. He received a bachelor's degree in oceanography from the University of Washington, a master's degree from the University of Connecticut, and a PhD from the University of Massachusetts Boston. His research focuses on organisms that inhabit the muddy seafloor (benthos) and their effects on the chemistry of sediments and overlying water.

He first became interested in benthic organisms while digging up various worms, clams, shrimp and other unusual creatures inhabiting mud flats exposed at low tide in front of his grandparent's home on Vashon Island in Puget Sound, Washington.

Although the vast majority of the earth's solid surface is covered in marine mud and benthic organisms thus inhabit the largest habitat on the earth's solid surface, there is much to be learned about the ecological and functional roles these bottom dwellers play in the ocean. David's work in the Bering Sea focuses on the effects of variation in organic-matter supply from the water column to the sediments on the abundance of benthic organisms and the rates of nutrient cycling between sediments and overlying water.

Mike Sigler NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center email

Dr. Mike Sigler became Program Leader of the newly formed Habitat and Ecological Process Research (HEPR) Program in August 2005. Previously he led Steller sea lion prey and predation studies, the Alaska sablefish stock assessment, and the Alaska sablefish longline survey.

Dr. Sigler is recognized as a fishery stock assessment expert and also has developed innovative pinniped-prey and predator studies. He has served on stock assessment review panels for New England (chair), Washington-Oregon-California (chair), Canada, Alaska State, and Alaska Federal (vice-chair) fisheries, was an analyst for a National Research Council (NRC) review of stock assessment methods, and has advised University of Azores (Portugal) and New Zealand scientists on survey methods and population models. He has published over 20 peer-reviewed publications spanning species including sablefish, Steller sea lion, Pacific sleeper shark, pollock, herring, eulachon and sperm whale.

Dr. Sigler received his BS in 1979 and MS in 1982 from Cornell University, and his PhD in 1993 from the University of Washington. He is an Affiliate Professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, where he has taught Population Dynamics. He invented a widely used electronic fish measuring board, has authored nearly 30 stock assessments and technical reports, has spent over 800 days at sea and has been chief scientist on over 30 Sesearch cruises in Alaska.

Daniel Sigman Princeton University email

No bio available.

Rolf Sonnerup University of Washington email

No picture or bio available.

Phyllis Stabeno NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory email

No bio available.

Dean Stockwell University of Alaska Fairbanks email

No bio available.

Field Notes Diane's zooplankton work was featured in a story aboard the USCG icebreaker Healy, July 2008.

Diane Stoecker University of Maryland email

Diane Stoecker is a Professor at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. She received a PhD in Ecology and Evolution from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1979, then was a post-doctoral scholar and scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution before accepting a faculty position at University of Maryland in 1991.

Her research interests include growth and grazing of marine planktonic protists (microzooplankton and eukaryotic phytoplankton) and interactions between microbial food webs and higher trophic levels. She has conducted research in the North Atlantic, Equatorial Pacific, and Antarctic seas as well as in coastal waters. Her recent research includes feeding by photosynthetic dinoflagellates, photosynthesis and organelle retention in ciliate microzooplankton, harmful algae blooms and their effects on larval development and survival, and interactions between eutrophication, top down control and algal blooms.

The microzooplankton assemblage is important in coupling changes near the base of the food web to higher trophic levels. As part of the BEST-BSIERP program, she is investigating the role of microzooplankton in the southeast Bering Sea ecosystem and the responses of this link to variations in weather and climate.

Greg Stossmeister University Corporation for Atmospheric Research email

No picture or bio available.