Marine Affairs News
Department of Marine Affairs
University of Rhode Island
Kingston, Rhode Island
Faculty Activities

• Richard Burroughs notes that over the years, URI has had productive relationships with graduate students from Korea and China. In 2003, Professor Richard Burroughs traveled to China for a lecture tour. Recently, the Marine Affairs Department, with the assistance of the University, has taken several steps to explore avenues for strengthening connections with Asia. First, this past summer graduate student, Kate Mulvaney, traveled to Xiamen University in China to take an international law course. Second, Dr. Benrong Peng, of Xiamen University, is visiting the Department of Marine Affairs as a postdoctoral scholar. His work will be instrumental in assessing what avenues hold the greatest promise for expanding our collaboration. Third, this year, as in the past, we have graduate students in our program from Korea. Finally, we are working through the Global University 8 Consortium to evaluate the desirability and means of establishing a graduate education program that serves students in China, Korea, the United States, and perhaps beyond.
  
  Other educational developments in the department have focused on our Ph.D. students. Rick serves as co-principal investigator on the NSF-funded Coastal Institute Integrated Graduate Education, Research and Training Program. Ph.D. students who matriculate through this program learn to integrate science and policy related to coastal ecosystems and develop abilities to collaborate across academic disciplines while building the specific skills normally associated with a traditional Ph.D. program. Each year, the Department of Marine Affairs nominates students who have completed Master's degrees at URI or elsewhere to participate in this innovative program.
  
  During the past year, Rick completed a number of projects that evaluated transportation systems in coastal environments. As scientific and technical information grows concerning the environmental impacts of dredging, institutions and organizations shift. Rick analyzed these changes in a recent article (R. Burroughs, 2005. Institutional Change in the Port of New York, Maritime Policy and Management 32:315-328) and presentation at the National Academy of Sciences for the Interagency Committee on the Marine Transportation System. Ferry transportation offers a potentially attractive alternative to more highway, and through terminal construction may enhance coastal communities. With Professor Robert Thompson and graduate student, Tiffany Smythe, Rick developed an analysis of this topic (R. Thompson, R. Burroughs and T. Smythe, 2006. Exploring the Connections Between Ferries and Urban Form, Journal of Urban Technology 13:25-52). The research team presented additional findings at the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning Conference in Kansas City, Missouri during the fall and at The Coastal Society Conference in St. Pete Beach, Florida in the late spring. Technical reports on these topics are available through the URI Transportation Center (R. Burroughs, R. Thompson and T. Smythe, 2006. Quonset Point Multi-Modal, Mixed-Use Ferry Terminal Study, URI Transportation Center, Research Report, Project No. 000470, 160 pp., and R. Burroughs and C. Santora, 2004. Disposal of Contaminated Sediment from the Port of New York, URI Transportation Center, Research Report Project No. 536184, 91 pp.).
  
  At present, Rick serves as a member of the Board of The Coastal Society where he is also Co-chair of the Education Committee. Just this fall, the Rhode Island Chapter, which is headed by Marine Affairs' graduate students, expanded to include a forum series of speakers as well as social events and local travel. Also here in Rhode Island, Rick serves on the Narragansett Bay Commission which puts him on the front lines of Bay clean-up activities. Through a multi-million-dollar investment in new facilities, the Commission will limit combined sewer overflows in 2008 and substantially improve Bay water quality.
  
  
• Tracey Dalton traveled to Belize and Honduras this summer (2006) with an interdisciplinary team of researchers and students to examine governance factors of linked social and ecological systems. For this three-year project funded by NSF’s Human and Social Dynamics Program, the research team will visit thirty marine reserves and their associated communities throughout the wider Caribbean and examine the social and ecological factors that influence their performance. She and Prof. Robert Thompson began a two-year RI Sea Grant-funded project to understand spatial and temporal patterns of use in the Narragansett Bay. With a team of Coastal Fellows and a graduate student, they conducted over thirty observational surveys of the Bay this summer. Last spring, she served on the sub-group of the Zoning Working Group for the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. She continued her research on public participation in resource management, authoring an article in 34 Coastal Management 351-357 (2006) titled “Exploring participants' views of participatory coastal and marine resource management processes.”
  
  
• Kristen Fletcher served as co-chair of The Coastal Society 2004 Conference with the theme "Measure for Measure: How Do We Gauge Coastal Stewardship?" on May 23-26, 2004 in Newport. The conference focused on how coastal managers, resource users, law and policy makers, educators and students, and other coastal community members measure and assess coastal resources, functions and human inputs. She also directed the Society's first Institute for Future Coastal Leaders at the conference which included several MAF students: Kathryn Ford, Tara Janosh, and Jesse Mechling. The Institute brought graduate students and recent graduates from across the country together for a day training in communication and facilitation.
  
  This summer, Prof. Fletcher led a research project and workshop with The Nature Conservancy to engage leaders in submerged lands law and management in a dialogue about the potential application of leasing and ownership of submerged lands for conservation purposes. She also served as chair of the Marine Law Symposium at Roger Williams University School of Law which reviewed the Ocean Commission reports and brought together lawyers, academics, practitioners, and federal and state coastal managers to discuss next steps in crafting a national ocean policy. During the fall she gave two presentations: one at the Environmental Leadership Program Retreat in Highlands, North Carolina on Influencing a National Dialogue on Ocean Policy and another at the Submerged Lands Management Conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia on the Law & Policy of Conservation Leasing & Ownership. In 2004, she published "Taking a Risk: Legal Challenges and Issues for No-Take Zones" in the American Fisheries Society Symposium Proceedings.
  
  
• Timothy Hennessey has been appointed to the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Canadian Water Network, a consortium of researchers established as one of the ten Centers of Excellence by the Canadian government. He also gave presentations on his research on the ecology of governance at the Coastal Society's 19th International Conference in Newport, R.I. in May, the Coastal Zone Canada meeting in St. John, Newfoundland in June and at the Coastal Zone Pacific meeting in Brisbane, Australia in September.
  
  
• Lawrence Juda has been working with a team of researchers at the University of Rhode Island under the terms of a grant from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) on governance and socio-economic aspects of large marine ecosystems (LMEs). This group prepared A Handbook on Governance and Socioeconomics of Large Marine Ecosystems www.iwlearn.net/abt_iwlearn/pns/learning/resolveuid/0ad164029569bc6c2065fd5204bbc136 that was recently published with a foreword by Dr. Veerle Vanderweerd, the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) Coordinator for the Global Programme of Action for Land-Based Pollution and the Head of the UNEP Regional Seas Programme. As part of this project the team ran a week-long workshop in Newport, RI in March 2006 for government officials from seventeen countries and nine GEF-funded LME programs from Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
  
  In January 2006, Prof. Juda gave a presentation on "Regional Ocean Governance and its Relationship to Ecosystem-Based Management" at a conference on Ecosystem-Based Management in New England: An Assessment of Ecosystem Governance Structures. The conference was cosponsored by the Roger Williams University Marine Affairs Institute, the URI Department of Marine Affairs, and Rhode Island Sea Grant. He also served on the planning committee for the October 2006 follow-up conference at Roger Williams University Law School on Operationalizing Ecosystem-Based Management.
  
  In other work, Prof. Juda is the author of "The Report of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy: State Perspectives," 34 Coastal Management 1-16 (2006) and he completed a study entitled "The European Union and Ocean Use Management: the Marine Strategy and the Maritime Policy." This latter article appears in 38 Ocean Development and International Law 259-282 (2007) and is an extension of his work in the area of comparative analysis of national ocean policies begun in an earlier article "Changing National Approaches to Ocean Governance: The United States, Canada, and Australia," 34 Ocean Development and International Law 161-187 (2003). He has also been working with Dr. Dong-Oh Cho of the Korea Maritime Institute on a comparative analysis of of ocean governance in the United States and the Republic of Korea and is continuing work on a long-term research project relating to evolving multilateral treaty law and international attempts to operationalize ecosystem-based approaches for ocean/coastal areas.
  
  
• Seth Macinko began the 2003-04 academic year by organizing a panel session and presenting a paper at the "People and the Sea, II" conference held in September in Amsterdam at the MARE center for maritime research. In November, Prof. Macinko was invited to give a presentation at the "Managing Our Nation's Fisheries" conference held in Washington, DC. The eight regional fishery management councils in the U.S organized this conference. In January, he spoke at the Vermont Law School's "Changing Tides in Ocean Management" symposium. Ultimately, this presentation was turned into an article, co-authored with Daniel Bromley, entitled "Property and Fisheries for the Twenty-First Century: Seeking Coherence from Legal and Economic Doctrine," that appeared this fall in the Vermont Law Review 28:623-661 (2004). In May, Prof. Macinko was invited to speak at the graduate ecology group seminar at Scripps Institute of Oceanography. He also gave invited lectures at Brown University and the United States Coast Guard Academy and continued his service on the Scientific and Statistical Committee of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council and the Rhode Island Marine Fisheries Council.
  
  During the year, he worked with MAF student Kim Lellis to secure funding for her masters research through the National Science Foundation. Prof. Macinko also obtained a grant from the Norton Sound Economic Development Corporation (NSEDC) for research on fisheries-based community development planning in the NSEDC region. In June, he accompanied MAF students Megan Buckley and Sarah Schumann to Juneau, Alaska to initiate work on the latest component of his "Fishing Community Impacts and Study Methods" project funded by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Megan will be using the results from her fieldwork in 21 communities in southeast Alaska as the basis of her thesis. In early October, Prof. Macinko, Marine Affairs PhD student Marco Quesada, and Sarah Schumann all presented papers at the CoastFish 2004 conference in Merida, Mexico. Finally, he recently returned to the rugby pitch--after a hiatus of 18 years--playing for the alumni squad against the current URI men's club during homecoming weekend. He is now recuperating and may be recovered enough to play again in 18 years.
  
  
• Bruce Marti is the author of a new article: "Cruise Line Logo Recognition," in 18 Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing 25-31 (2005). He also has submitted an article regarding the Alaskan cruise market for publication in Geoforum. During the past summer he visited northern Europe and Iceland, examining cruise ports.
  
  
• Dennis Nixon spends most of his time serving as the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College of the Environment and Life Sciences, but also continues to teach his graduate and undergraduate courses in coastal and marine law. He also provides advice on legal and insurance issues for UNOLS, the University National Oceanographic Laboratory System, through a grant funded by the National Science Foundation. In October 2005 he will be part of the U.S. delegation at the International Research Ship Operators Meeting in Chennai, India, and will deliver a paper on oceanographic research vessel law. Service activities include his work as the Secretary and General Counsel of the Point Club, a self-insurance program for commercial fishermen, and Chair of the URI Small Research Vessel Control Board. In his spare time, he continues to race sailboats and compete in triathlons.
  
  
• Richard Pollnac presented a paper in October 2003 on "Factors influencing the sustainability of integrated coastal management projects in the Philippines and Indonesia," at the symposium Uncertain Futures: A Critical Examination of Environmental Management in Southeast Asia at the School of Marine Affairs, University of Washington, Seattle WA. In November he was invited to present the paper, "What is a community cold storage" at the Sea Grant sponsored workshop Building a Public Seafood Processing and Cold Storage Facility: Is it Right for your Community? at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, AK. In December he was invited to present a talk on socioeconomic factors influencing the sustainability of integrated coastal management projects in the Philippines and Indonesia at the symposium Is Integrated Coastal Management Sustainable? Research Findings from the Philippines and Indonesia, sponsored by The World Bank, Washington, DC. In February 2004 he was invited to present the paper "Analyzing community-based marine protected areas in the Philippines" in the symposium Biological Successes or Social Failures? Assessing Marine Protected Areas at The 170th National Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Seattle, Washington. In May he presented the paper "Social and project activity factors influencing marine protected area performance" at The 19th International Conference of the Coastal Society, 23-26 May, Newport, Rhode Island.
  
  Publications during this past year include "Factors influencing the sustainability of integrated coastal management projects in the Philippines." (with Thiele, M.T., Eisma, R.V., Gaudan, W.G., Tabara, E., Dinoy, N.J., and Avellana Jr. R.) Silliman Journal 44(1, 2003):37-74, "Economic benefits and integrated coastal management sustainability." (with R.S. Pomeroy (principal author), E.G. Oracion, and D.A. Caballes) Silliman Journal 44(1, 2003):75-94, and "Towards developing a complete understanding: A social science agenda for marine protected areas." (with P. Christy (principal author), et al.). Fisheries 28(12, 2003):22-26. Finally, in July and August 2004 he conducted fieldwork in coastal Vietnam collecting information concerning the relationship between fisheries co-management and conflict in fishing communities as a part of the Community Conservation Network Project, Fish Wars: Conflict and Collaboration in Fisheries Management in Southeast Asia.
  
  
• Robert Thompson has continued to conduct research on local government responses to global climate change. He and Professor Opaluch from the Department of Environmental and Natural Resource Economics hosted a three-day, "all hands" meeting of the Consortium for Atlantic Regional Assessment at Alton Jones Campus in May. This is a three and a half year regional study that is funded by the US Environmental Protection Agency. Approximately 60 people from the research team (including researchers from Penn State University, Carnegie Mellon, the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences, and URI) and the advisory board (which includes business leaders, NGOs, government officials, and researchers from other universities) attended the meeting. At the meeting, Professor Thompson delivered a talk on the close connections between the biophysical environment, climate, and culture in southern New England.
  
  Professor Thompson has the following articles coming out this fall: Overcoming Barriers to Ecologically-Sensitive Land Management: Green Developments and the Development of a Land Ethic. Journal of Planning Education and Research. 24(2); When sustainability is not a priority: an analysis of trends and strategies. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education. 6(2); and Pursuing sustainability from the middle: the experience at the University of Rhode Island. The Declaration. 7(2). He also presented a paper at The Coastal Society's 19th International Conference in Newport, RI, entitled "Offshore Wind Power and the Papers." Along with Professor Burroughs, Professor Thompson has been awarded two new grants to study the feasibility of a intermodal, mixed-use ferry terminal at Quonsett Point. One grant is from the URI Transportation Center and the other is from the RI Economic Development Corporation.
  

Current Graduate Students News

• Good News: MAF Graduate Students Successful in Competition for Fellowship Awards
  
  At the end of the spring 2007 semester, it was announced that three graduate students in the Department of Marine Affairs were recipients of Dean John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellowships: Karen Hyun,(Ph.D. student), Christine Patrick (M.A. student), and Jennifer Mehaffey (M.M.A. student in the joint J.D./M.M.A program). This national fellowship program, sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Sea Grant College Program, matches highly qualified graduate students with "hosts" in the legislative and executive branches of government in the Washington, D.C. area, for a one year paid fellowship. In addition, Karen Hyun also received a two year fellowship from the Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation. This selection for this award is made from a national and very competitive field of outstanding students and targets those who have the ability and determination to make a significant impact in the environmental field. And Dan Robinson (M.A. student) received a NOAA Coastal Management Fellowship and will be working in San Francisco for the next two years on coastal management issues.

• Lisa Butch is working as a Sea Grant Fellow for the Great Lakes Commission in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The Commission is a bi-national organization and focuses on ecosystem-based management for the Great Lakes basin. She has been working on a variety of projects, including assisting in the development of state and regional management plans for invasive species and the development of a comprehensive, standardized coastal wetlands monitoring program for the entire basin. She has also traveled to Washington, D.C. to meet with congressional staff on Great Lakes issues. She notes that this is a great learning experience that allows her to put her marine affairs education to good use.
  
  
• Elizabeth Etrie received a National Sea Grant College Program Dean John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship in 2006 and is working in the Office of Marine Conservation, Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C. The Office of Marine Conservation is responsible for formulating and implementing U.S. policy on a broad range of international issues concerning living marine resources.
  
  
• Karen Hyun spent the summer of 2005 working in Arizona with Francisco Zamora-Arroyo, the project manager for the Colorado River Delta at the Sonoran Institute. The Sonoran Institute is a non-governmental organization concerned with conservation and sustainable development in the West from Canada to Mexico. Her work involved establishing a monitoring framework of indicators of ecosystem health in the Delta, as a region, and within priority area sites, as established from a past multi-institutional report. With the help of Professor Karl Flessa at the University of Arizona, the principal investigator for the NSF funded Research Coordination Network - Colorado River Delta and numerous Delta researchers, indicators were selected, although the final report needs much refinement. Karen also spent time working with AEURHYC (Ecological Association of Rio Hardy and Colorado River Users), a community group composed of various stakeholders (farmers, fishers, tourists, tribal members), on active restoration projects, eradicating invasive species and planting native habitat. Overall, she says it was an incredible summer, mostly because of the collaborative commitment of researchers, managers, scientists, and community members in conserving the Delta of which she was a part.
  
  
• Elizabeth Matthews, In April 2007, Elizabeth Matthews successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation, Community-based and Collaborative Management of Coral Reefs and Coastal Resources in Palau. Since 2001, she has been working at the Palau Conservation Society based at the small island country of Palau in the western Pacific Ocean. Much of her work focuses on projects associated with protected area management, ecosystem-based management and endangered species conservation. In the upcoming year, her work will focus on documenting community resource use and management needs for a large coral reef system and understanding land and resource use changes over time on Palau's largest island. She can be contacted via email at: lizmat@palaunet.com
  
  
• Kate Mulvaney attended the summer 2006 Marco Polo-Cheng Zhe Academy held at Xiamen University in Xiamen, China. The academy brought together students from eight different countries to learn about and to educate one another on international ocean law. She notes that the mix of cultures made learning international law challenging and fascinating. It was also a lesson in humility as she depended on many of her Chinese classmates to lead her through China's legal system in class and through China's temples, markets, tea houses, and exotic menus outside of class. She left China with a stronger academic understanding of international marine affairs and of the need to respect the world's many cultures while formulating policy. She is grateful to both the University of Rhode Island and Xiamen University for enabling her to participate in this fantastic experience.
  
  
• Karen Palmigiano completed her thesis research this past summer working with Profs. Tracey Dalton and Richard Pollnac in Belize and Honduras. They conducted interviews with community members and various officials to gauge their understanding and level of participation in Marine Protected Areas. Karen also worked this summer on a project in East Africa for the URI Coastal Resources Center helping to train community members in monitoring of shellfish within small no-take areas. Karen will spend this school year completing her course work and her thesis while working as a graduate assistant for Prof. Dalton.
  
  
• Marco Antonio Quesada Alpizar, MAF Ph.D. candidate, has been working since the end of May 2005 in the regional offices of Conservation International in Costa Rica. He is the current Marine Program Coordinator for Southern Mesoamerica (Nicaragua, Costa Rica & Panama). His main responsibilities include coordinating the actions being implemented, in the latter two countries, regarding the Eastern Tropical Pacific Seascape Project. This project is a broad scale marine conservation and resource management effort that includes the EEZs of four ETP countries: Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia and Ecuador. Marco is also leading a technical group in charged of producing a technical report for the Costa Rican Commission on the Exclusive Economic Zone, which in turn has to advise the President on key actions needed to advance the creation of new MPAs and to improve the country's capacity to manage its marine resources.
  
  
• Tiffany Smythe completed her M.A. and is now working on a Ph.D. in Marine Affairs, both through the guidance of Professor Rob Thompson. She is a Fellow with the Coastal Institute IGERT Project, a National Science-Foundation program designed to encourage multidisciplinary problem-solving among Ph.D. students in the natural and social sciences www.ci.uri.edu/ciip/Students/biographies/TiffanySmythe.html. Through this program, Tiffany prepared a white paper for the Rhode Island Economic Policy Council on the demand for and feasibility of a statewide GIS-based parcel data system, and presented this research at the "Emerging Issues Along the Urban/Rural Interfaces" conference in Atlanta, GA. In addition, Tiffany recently presented her Master's thesis research on the conversion of marina and boatyard properties to private residential development at the "Working Waterways and Waterfronts" conference in Norfolk, VA.
  
  

Graduate Student and Alumni Publications

• Gustavo Bisbal,"The Best Available Science for the Management of Anadromous Salmonids in the Columbia River Basin," 59 Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 1952-1959 (2002)
  
  
• Gustavo Bisbal, "Learning to Decide and Deciding to Learn: Conduits to Wild Salmon in 2010?," in R. T. Lackey, D.H. Lach, and S.L. Duncan (eds.), Salmon 2100: The Future of Wild Pacific Salmon (Bethesda, MD: American Fisheries Society, 2006) pp.151-173
  
  
• J. Cinner, and T. McClanahan (in press). "Socioeconomic factors leading to overfishing in an artisanal coral reef fishery." Environmental Conservation
  
  
• J. Cinner, M. Marnane, T. McClanahan, G. Almany. "Periodic closures as adaptive coral reef management in the Indo-Pacific. Ecology & Society 11(1) (2006): 31 www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol11/iss1/art31
  
  
• McClanahan, T., M. Marnane, J. Cinner, T. Clark, W. Kiene. (in press). "A comparison of marine protected areas and alternative approaches to coral reef conservation." Current Biology
  
  
• J. Cinner, "Socioeconomic factors influencing customary marine tenure in the Indo-Pacific," Ecology & Society 10 (1)(2005): 36. www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol10/iss1/art36
  
  
• J. Cinner, M. Marnane, T. Clark, T. McClanahan, J. Ben, R. Yamuna. (2005). Trade, Tenure, and Tradition: Influence of sociocultural factors on resource use in Melanesia. Conservation Biology 19 (5) 1469-1477
  
  
• J.Cinner, M. Marnane, T. McClanahan. "Conservation and community benefits from traditional coral reef management at Ahus Island, Papua New Guinea." Conservation Biology 19 (6), 1714-1723 (2005)
  
  
• J.E. Cinner and R.B. Pollnac, "Poverty, Perceptions and Planning: Why Socioeconomics Matter in the Management of Mexican Reefs," 47 Ocean & Coastal Management 479-493 (2004)
  
  
• Brian Crawford, et al., "Compliance and Enforcement of Community-Based Coastal Resource Management Regulations in North Sulawesi, Indonesia," 32 Coastal Management 39-50 (2004)
  
  
• Brian Crawford, et al., "Factors Influencing Progress in Establishing Community-Based Marine Protected Areas in Indonesia," 34 Coastal Management 39-64 (2006)
  
  
• Leila Sievanen, Brian Crawford, Richard Pollnac, and Celia Lowe, "Weeding Through Assumptions of Livelihood Approaches in ICM: Seaweed Farming in the Philippines and Indonesia," 48 Ocean & Coastal Management 297-313 (2005)
  
  
• Braxton Davis, "Regional Planning in the U.S. Coastal Zone: A Comparative Analysis of 15 Special Area Plans," 47 Journal of Ocean and Coastal Management 79-94 (2004)
  
  
• Frank Gable, A Large Marine Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries Management and Sustainability: Linkges and Concepts towards Best Practices (Woods Hole, MA: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, August 2004)
  
  
• Abdul Halim, "Adoption of Cyanide Fishing Practice in Indonesia," 45 Ocean & Coastal Management 313-321 (2002)
  
  
• Lennox Hinds, "Oceans Governance and the Implementation Gap," 27 Marine Policy 349-356 (2003)
  
  
• Karen Hyun, "Solutions Lie Between Extremes: The Evolution of International Watercourse Law on the Colorado River," 35 Environmental Law Reporter 10550-10555 (2005)
  
  
• Karen Hyun, "Transboundary Solutions to Environmental Problems in the Gulf of California Large Marine Ecosystem," 33 Coastal Management 435-445 (2005)
  
• Mous, P.J., Y. Sadovy, A. Halim, J. Pet. (2006). Capture for culture: artificial shelters for grouper collection in SE Asia. Fish and Fisheries 7: 58-72.
  
  
• Mous, P.J., J. Pet, Z. Arifin, R. Djohani, M.V. Erdmann, A. Halim, M. Knight, L. Pet-Soede, & G. Wiadnya (2005). Policy needs to improve marine capture fisheries management and to define a role for marine protected areas in Indonesia. Fisheries Management and Ecology 12: 259-268.
  
  
• Benrong Peng, Huasheng Hong, Xiongzhi Xue, Di Jin, "On the measurement of socioeconomic benefits of integrated coastal management (ICM): Application to Xiamen, China," Ocean & Coastal Management 49 (2006) 93-109
  
  
• Haiqing Li, "Management of Coastal Mega-Cities: A New Challenge in the 21st century," 27 Marine Policy 333-337 (2003)
  
  
• Elena McCarthy, The International Regulation of Underwater Sound (Boston: Kluwer Academic Press, 2004).
  
  
• Marco Antonio Quesada Alpizar, "Participation and Fisheries Management in Costa Rica: From Theory to Practice," 30 Marine Policy 641-650 (2006)
  
  
• Kevin W. Riddle, "Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing: Is International Cooperation Contagious?," 37 Ocean Development and International Law 265-297 (2006)
  
  
• Christine Santora, "Management Obstacles and Solutions to a Sea Turtle Bycatch Conflict: Can Endangered Species be Protected While Minimizing Socioeconomic Impacts?," 31 Coastal Management (2003)
  
  
• Christine Santora, "Sustainable Energy in the Oceans: Offshore Wind in the U.S.," in Diane Rahm (ed.), Sustainable Energy and the States: Essays on Politics, Markets and Leadership (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2006) pp.179-201.
  
  
• Christine Santora, Nicole Hade, and Jackie Odell, "Managing Offshore Wind Developments in the United States: Legal, Environmental and Social Considerations Using a Case Study in Nantucket Sound," 47 Ocean & Coastal Management 141-164 (2004)
  
  
• Wiadnya, D.G.R., P.J. Mous, R. Djohani, M.V. Erdmann, A. Halim, M. Knight, L. Pet-Soede, & J.S. Pet. (2006). Marine capture fisheries policy formulation and the role of marine protected areas as tool for fisheries management in Indonesia. Marine Research in Indonesia. 30:33-45
  
  

Graduate Alumni Activities

• Dick Allen has been a commercial lobsterman since 1964, running his own vessel the Ocean Pearl and received a Pew Charitable Trust Fellowship in Marine Conservation to investigate a bio-economic model to help fishermen plan better for management and conservation of fisheries.
  
  
• Monica Allen, who received her M.A. in 1992, has been hired as a public affairs specialist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. She'll be working as part of a public affairs team in Silver Spring, Md., handling media inquiries and assisting with media for Dr. William T. Hogarth, the Assistant Administrator for Fisheries at the National Marine Fisheries Service. Monica worked more than 22 years as a journalist for several New England newspapers. For the last 8 years, she has been at The Standard-Times, in New Bedford, MA. She served as the first women to be editor of the editorial page, holding that position for the last five years. During that time, she won several journalism awards for editorials on restoring fisheries and on improving fishing vessel safety.
  
  
• Marie-Christine Aquarone is deputy director of the NOAA Large Marine Ecosystem Program. This geographical and ecological concept and and tool for ocean management was the brainchild of Lewis Alexander, the founder and former department head of the URI Marine Affairs Program, and Ken Sherman, director of the Narragansett Laboratory of NOAA-NMFS. Based in Narragansett, Rhode Island, MC also coordinates the Narragansett Bay Window, a program that brings together the perspectives of many researchers and environmental agencies on how to detect long-term trends and patterns in Narragansett Bay, and how to evaluate its overall health.
  
  
• Tom Ardito is Policy and Outreach Coordinator for the Narragansett Bay Estuary Program, one of 28 National Estuary Programs established by Congress under the Clean Water Act. Among other duties he is editor of the quarterly Narragansett Bay Journal, available online at www.nbep.org. Last year he began work on a Ph.D. in Marine Affairs at URI.
  
  
• John Arnold is an environmental consultant for Stratex, LLC, a Portland, Maine, based strategic, environmental technology consulting firm. Before joining Stratex, John worked at Maine Yankee for 16 years as a special projects coordinator, senior environmental engineer, and public affairs director.
  
  
• Ivar Babb is the Director of the National Underseas Research Center for the North Atlantic and the Great Lakes and is a member of the Oceans Technology Foundation that funds marine research overseas.
  
  
• Robert Ballou is Chief of Staff at the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management.
  
  
• Margaret Pilaro Barrette is working as an environmental planner for the Aquatic Resources Division of the Washington State Department of Natural Resources. Her primary focus is on the Lower Columbia River and she has been working with environmental interests against a proposal to further deepen the river channel. Margaret also represents the agency on the implementation committee for the Lower Columbia River Estuary Program, works with the Endangered Species Act, assists local governments with shoreline management, and conducts environmental reviews of proposed projects on the state's aquatic lands.
  
  
• Brett Becker is working as a coastal planner in Monterrey County, California.
  
  
• Lee Benaka continues to work as a Fisheries Management Specialist in NMFS's Office of Sustainable Fisheries, where he reviews regulations for South Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean fisheries and helps coordinate national bycatch policy for NMFS. Lee served as coauthor for an upcoming NOAA Technical Memo entitled "Evaluating bycatch: a national approach to standardized bycatch monitoring programs" and has coauthored an article to be published in an upcoming issue of Marine Fisheries Review entitled "The National Marine Fisheries Service's National Bycatch Strategy." In addition, Lee has been selected for the U.S. Department of Commerce's 2004 Executive Leadership Development Program.
  
  
• Sean Bercaw visited the Department of Marine Affairs and gave a fascinating presentation to the Marine Affairs Brown Bag Lunch Series on his return visit to Pitcairn Island of Mutiny of the Bounty fame. His webpage detailing the visit may be visited at www.pitcairnvoyage.com.
  
  
• Tina Berger is a Public Affairs and Resource Specialist with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. She coordinates the Commission's Outreach Program that includes a monthly newsletter, press releases, webpage, informational brochures, and maintains the Commission's advisory panel process. Further, Tina coordinates the Commission's Protected Species Program and develops protected species sections to fishery management plans and amendments.
  
  
• Carli Bertrand is now with the NOAA Habitat Division in a new position and is working on ocean policy issues such as marine protected areas, offshore energy, and marine transportation.
  
  
• Shannon Bettridge is with the Protected Resources Division of NMFS in Silver Spring, MD, focusing on large whale issues. Specifically, she is working on the right whale ship strike reduction strategy.
  
  
• Tom Bigford is Division Chief of the Habitat Division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
  
  
• Gustavo Bisbal is a Foreign Affairs Officer with the Department of State, Bureau of Oceans, and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs in Washington, D.C. He serves as the Department’s Officer for CCAMLR (Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources) and is involved in with putting together a Marine Science portfolio for the Office of Ocean Affairs.
  
  
• Dorian Boardman founded Boardman Ecological Services in 2004. It is a women-business enterprise in Rhode Island and she conducts field investigations for the presence of wetlands, collects data, and completes all necessary environmental permits associated with the resource both in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. This can include federal, state and local permits with, but not limited to, U.S. Army Corps, National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (EPA), National Environmental Protection Act, Water Quality Permits (Clean Water Act), Wetland Permits (MADEP, RIDEM and CRMC) and local conservation commissions (MA only). Currently, she works with large and medium engineering firms to design projects that minimize impacts on wetland resources. Most of these projects are transportation related and, therefore, she has worked closely with RI Department of Transportation, Environmental Section on many projects. She also has GIS and GPS experience.
  
  
• Chris Boelke is working with the Habitat Conservation Division of the National Marine Fisheries Service in Gloucester, Massachusetts. His primary responsibility is the essential fish habitat review of construction projects, licenses, and permits within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He also serves as the oil spill response coordinator for the NMFS Northeast Regional Office.
  
  
• Deirdre Boelke (Valentine) has been working for the New England Fishery Management Council since the fall of 2001. She is now responsible for the Scallop Fishery Management Plan. The New England Council is currently developing an amendment to the FMP to control capacity and fishing mortality from the general category scallop fishery. The general category fishery is an open access fishery, and this action is considering limited entry as well as other measures. Deidre and husband Chris Chris had a baby girl, Elizabeth Shea Boelke, born on August 9, 2005 and live in Newbury, MA.
  
  
• Andrew Breau is working for the Department of Natural Resources and Energy, New Brunswick, Canada as Submerged Lands Project Manager.
  
  
• William J. Brennan, Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Affairs, NOAA, U.S. Department of Commerce. William Brennan was appointed to this position by President Bush in April 2002 and in this role he is involved in the negotiation of international agreements, coordinates U.S. policy on international oceanic and atmospheric matters, and focuses on international environmental issues. In 1983 he earned an M.A. degree in the Graduate Program in Marine Affairs at the University of Rhode Island and then worked on the staff of the House Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee in Washington, D.C. In 1987 he was appointed by Maine Governor John McKernan, Jr. to serve as Commissioner of the Maine Department of Marine Resources. On leaving government service he opened a private consulting firm in Portland, Maine, providing marine and environmental policy guidance to business and government. He also served on the New England Fisheries Management Council, the Aquaculture and Marine Technology Board, and the Maine Oil Spill Advisory Council. Additionally, he earned a Ph.D. in ecology and environmental sciences from the University of Maine.
  
  
• Robert Burrell has accepted a position with Save the Bay and will be its fleet captain/educator for two new 45-foot, educational vessels. Each year some 30,000 students from grades 5-12 will be given tours of Narragansett Bay. The position began right after his retirement from the Navy.
  
  
• Jena Carter worked as Senior Policy Analyst, Natural Resources Policy Studies, Center for Best Practices of the National Governors Association in Washington, D.C. She is now the Director of Government Affairs at the Coastal States Organization (CSO). With headquarters in Washington, D.C., the CSO represents the coastal zone management directors of the 35 coastal states and territories.
  
  
• CMDR Mike Cerne (U.S. Coast Guard), after earning his MMA, served as Chief of the Fisheries Enforcement Division, U.S. Coast Guard Headquarters, in Washington, D.C. for three years. He is now in Kodiak, Alaska serving as the commander of the Coast Guard Cutter Storis, and once again patrols the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska. Mike notes that he is leaving the position of the Chief of the Fisheries Enforcement Division in good hands, as he is being replaced by CMDR John Davis, also a Marine Affairs alum of URI. John, he says, brings a wealth of fisheries enforcement experience and enthusiasm to the job.
  
  
• Yuh-Chen Chern works in the Marine Fisheries Division, Fisheries Department, Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan, in Taipei, Taiwan.
  
  
• Josh Cinner (M.A.M.A., 2000) has been actively involved in the evaluation of marine reserves in the US, Jamaica, Mexico, Papua New Guinea Indonesia, Kenya, Madagascar, and Tanzania. He has worked with groups such as the Ocean Conservancy, WWF, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), and NOAA on various contracts examining social aspects of resource use and governance. Josh has been the lead social scientist on numerous projects, including a $500,000 Packard funded project examining which management regimes are effectively conserving coral resources in the Indo-Pacific, and a project examining the socioeconomic impacts of coral bleaching in five Western Indian Ocean countries. Josh has conducted socioeconomic assessments in over 50 coastal communities in throughout the world. Josh currently lives in sunny and tropical Townsville, Australia, where he completed a PhD in 2005 and has taken up a 3 year postdoctoral fellowship with Terry Hughes at James Cook University. His recent work explores the social, economic, and cultural mechanisms that allow communities in Papua New Guinea to employ and maintain traditional reef management practices. He has co-authored a book evaluating marine and coastal protected areas in the Gulf of Maine, and has published numerous publications in journal such as Conservation Biology, Current Biology, Ecology & Society, Environmental Conservation and Ocean & Coastal Management. He can be contacted at joshua.cinner@jcu.edu.au
  
  
• Rick Comeau works in Middletown RI at MarineSafety International which does professional training for Mariners (BRM, Radar, ARPA, Shiphandling training and port development work). Port Development work is related to using our simulators for proof of concept work and berth layout. He teaches classes in the Marine Security area.
  
  
• Kevin Cute is a marine resources specialist with the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council and co-chair of the Policy and Legislation Committee of the Northeast Regional Panel of the federal Aquatic Nuisance Species Task Force.
  
  
• Mike Daley, one of the first graduates of the joint MMA/JD program of the Department of Marine Affairs and the Roger Williams School of Law, is serving a law clerk to Rhode Island Supreme Court Justice Frank Williams.
  
  
• Margaret Davidson served as Acting Assistant Administrator for the National Ocean Service and is now Director, NOAA Coastal Services Center in Charleston, South Carolina.
  
  
• Braxton Davis received his Ph.D. degree in the Department of Marine Affairs in 2003 has been appointed to the position of Research Assistant Professor at the Baruch Institute for Marine and Coastal Sciences at the University of South Carolina.
  
  
• Eric Denny is Director of Corporate Programs, Outward Bound, Inc. in Rockport, Maine.
  
  
• Rick De Voe is Director of South Carolina Sea Grant.
  
  
• Amy Diedrich defended her dissertation entitled "The Impacts of Tourism in Coastal Communities in Belize" in July 2006 and graduated from the MAF PhD program in August. She returned to Belize shortly thereafter to distribute the results of her research. As of October she is working as a research scientist at the Advanced Institute of Mediterranean Studies (IMEDEA), a joint institute of the Spanish National Research Council and the University of the Balearic Islands, located on the island of Mallorca. Her primary focus will be on developing an Integrated Coastal Zone Management Plan for the Balearic Islands.
  
  
• Elizabeth Dieveney is working at NOAA as the Coordinator for the Coral Reef Task Force and notes that this is a perfect placement for her, both personally and professionally.
  
  
• Tim Dillingham is the Executive Director of the American Littoral Society, a national coastal conservation organization based at Sandy Hook, New Jersey. The organization has 6,000 members in 42 states and seeks to protect and restore coastal habitat through research, education, advocacy, and public interest litigation. One of the issues of concern is coastal access. In an article appearing in the New York Times on July 4, 2004 concerning litigation to open beach access, Dillingham is quoted as saying "The coast is becoming increasingly privatized...We are seeing a race along the New Jersey coast to lock up access to the beaches and to privatize great lengths of it."
  
  
• Jessica Dominguez is a project officer in the Brownfields Programof the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. She works with recipients of federal grants for the assessment and cleanup of brownfields sites in New England. She is also the sustainabale development lead for the Brownfields Program and provides guidance on issues of brownfields redevelopment. She has a special interest in restoration and natural resource management in the context of community values and planning. She was selected to be an Environment Leadership Fellow for the New England region for 2008.
  
  
• LT Keith Donahue is now in the Coast Guard's Office of Environmental and Operational Standards at headquarters in Washington, D.C. He is working for LCDR Kathy Moore (see below) and is developing the Coast Guard's policy for implementing ballast water enforcement measures throughout the country. He has also been working with the General Accounting Office on an audit of Coast Guard and EPA enforcement of no discharge zones. Keith notes that the MAF Program provided good preparation for the work that he and LCDR Kathy Moore do. They are involved in writing and implementing U.S. regulations and policy and moving U.S. positions in relation to international marine and environmental conventions, particularly the big issue of invasive species.
  
  
• Susan Emerson is a Program Analyst for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of the Chief Financial Officer, Office of Enterprise, Technology, & Innovation. She is on the Environmental Finance Team, a small team dedicated to finding innovating ways of funding projects for environmental protection. Her web site is found at www.epa.gov/efinpage. Her current focus is on updating a finance publication titled "Paying for Sustainable Environmental Systems: A Guidebook of Financial Tools." Examples of financial tools that will be in the updated Guidebook include grants and loans funding projects such as the construction of municipal wastewater treatment plants, tax credits for buying solar panels, and land trusts for open space preservation. She enjoys this position very much and encourages MAF students and graduates interested in pursuing employment with EPA to contact her at emerson.susan@epa.gov.
  
  
• Allison Ferreira works as an analyst for the Northeast Regional Office of the National Marine Fisheries Service. Her primary task is to work with the New England and Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Councils on the management of the monkfish fishery.
  
  
• LCDR Brian Fiedler (U.S. Coast Guard) is the Coast Guard Liaison Officer to NOAA Fisheries in Silver Springs, MD. In that role, he supports the development of living marine resources operations and enforcement policies and agreements. He also aids in the evaluation and development of Coast Guard national and service wide plans, policies, procedures, and resource training requirements.
  
  
• Patty Freeland has accepted an internship at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C. She is working in the Science, Technology and Law Program in the Policy and Global Affairs Division.
  
  
• Laurie Frost is practicing law in the Washington, D.C. area and is involved with regulatory and legislative monitoring and reporting on maritime and marine pollution issues. She is a member of the Coast Guard's Towing Safety Advisory Committee and Chair of the Barge Retrieval, Voyage Planning, and Fire Suppression Working Group. She also serves as a Planning Commissioner for Fairfax County, Virginia and works on land use and zoning issues.
  
  
• Elizabeth Fuller (Valentine) and husband Vinton Valentine are now living in Falmouth, MA with their children Claire (4) and Lydia (2). He's a post-doc at the Ecosystem Center at the Marine Biological Lab in Woods Hole. Elizabeth has been consulting for about a year and a half on marina-related topics and recently began working part-time with the Waquoit Bay NERR to update its management plan.
  
  
• Elizabeth Gallup who was working at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation has accepted a position with the Virginia Marine Resources Commission as an environmental engineer.
  
  
• Megan Gamble works for the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission in Washington, D.C. and serves as the fishery management plan coordinator for winter flounder, spiny dogfish, coastal sharks, and shad and river herring.
  
  
• Anne Garnett is Director of the Aquidneck Island Land Trust and lives in Jamestown, R.I.
  
  
• Robert Gass is Assistant Regional Coordinator of the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management. In this capacity, he has worked on issues relating to regional coordination, project review, special natural areas protection, port and harbor revitalization, and coastal water quality improvement.
  
  
• Dan Gegan is Senior Planner in the Warwick, Rhode Island Department of Planning.
  
  
• Townsend Goddard is a Senior Policy Analyst with the Rhode Island State Senate Policy Office.
  
  
• LCDR Mark Gordon (U.S. Coast Guard) runs the southern region fishery training center in Charleston, S.C. He writes that the Marine Affairs Program provided an excellent perspective and background for his position. In his spare time he is completing a master's degree in public administration at the College of Charleston.
  
  
• Mahar Gorospe is working as a part-time consultant for a non-governmental organization called the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (or PATH Philippines). She coordinates research operations between PATH and colloborating NGOs for a Packard funded project called Integrated Population and Coastal Resource Management (I-POPCORM)
  
  
• Jennifer Greenamoyer worked for four years at the Environmental Protection Agency and then for a year as a congressional staffer. She is now working for the Sea Grant Association, as external affairs director.
  
  
• Marina Guedes emailed from Paradise Island, East Timor to let us know that she is working for the United Nations as the Advisor for the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries for East Timor's transitional government. East Timor became independent on May 20, 2002. She notes the complicated situation of offshore boundaries in the East Timor area.
  
  
• Abdul Halim is the Policy and Financing Manager for the Nature Conservancy's Coral Triangle Center, based in Bali - Indonesia. His main task is to support the government of Indonesia to develop coastal resources management policies that are environmentally benign. He may be contacted at ahalim@tnc.org
  
  
• Misty Hamilton works in SE Florida for St. Lucie County's Environmental Resources Department as the Coastal Resources Coordinator. She has been responsible for site plan review and permitting in all coastal areas of the county, along the North Fork of the St. Lucie River, the Indian River Lagoon, and the barrier islands. She also conducts water quality testing along the waterways in the county boat, monitors beach dune restoration projects, participates in public education events and monitors homeowner/condo compliance with night-time sea turtle lighting codes.
  
  
• Jennifer Hannum is working as an Environmental Planner for the Delaware Department of Transportation. She works on environmental assessment and permitting.
  
  
• Amy Hart (Adams) left her position as water resources planner at the Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program in 1995 and launched her own environmental consulting firm. Her experience with her new enterprise that undertakes environmental grant writing, environmental assessment and planning services, and environmental publication development and design is said to be very rewarding and challenging. In a note to Prof. Niels West, Amy observes that she would never have been able to accomplish all that she did without acquiring the M.A.M.A degree from URI's Marine Affairs Program.
  
  
• Mary Beth Hart is Coastal Nonpoint Source Program Coordinator for the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection, Office of Long Island Sound Programs.
  
  
• Megan Higgins, a graduate of the Joint J.D./M.M.A. Program, has left her position as a coastal analyst at the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council to take a position at the Marine Affairs Institute at the Roger Williams University Law School. She is now serving as the Institute’s Research Counsel. In that capacity she is responsible for managing the outreach arm of the Sea Grant Legal Program, overseeing the work of Sea Grant Law Fellows and conducting work with state and federal agencies, the environmental community and the private sector on legal research projects.
  
  
• Peter Hoar is Coastal Ecosystem Program Manager for NOAA/National Coastal Data Development Center (NCDDC), although, he is employed by Planning Systems Incorporated (PSI). Peter notes that the circumstance of national federal programs being run by federal "contractors" (i.e., he is not a "Fed") has become quite common (typically about 60% of staff in NOAA satellite offices), and has quite significant, though I believe as yet un-analyzed consequences for how NOAA and other federal agencies conduct business. Because NCDDC has been placed within the Ecosystem Goal under Ecosystem Observations in the NOAA reorganization process, my program is central to the NOAA/National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service(NESDIS)/NCDDC goal of providing comprehensive and easy access to watershed/coastal/marine data (i.e, all data relevant to coastal issues) and derived products (e.g., GIS). Additionally, he serves as the NESDIS representative on the NOAA Habitat Matrix Team, and within that, the invasive species team. Peter is also NOAA representative on both the Gulf of Mexico and Mississippi River Basin Panels of the National Aquatic Nuisance Species Task Force (under the Aquatic Nuisance Species Act), and serves on the Sea Grant Aquatic Invasive Species grant program proposal review board. All this invasive species stuff came about because of his involvement in the issue whilst a NERR manager, and through one of our NCDDC projects developing an IS early warning system.
  
  
• Joan Hoelzel is a Senior Environmental Analyst in the Office of Long Island Sound Program's, Coastal Programs section and works with coastal towns advising them on proper development in the coastal boundary. She also reviews state and federal projects for consistency with the state's coastal management program.
  
  
• Bob Holtzman is an acquisitions editor at International Marine (a McGraw-Hill Company), the largest publisher of books about recreational boating in the U.S. Based in Rockport, Maine, he welcomes inquiries about book projects on boating and other outdoor sports for a consumer audience. See www.internationalmarine.com or contact him at: bob_holtzman@mcgraw-hill.com
  
  
• Gretchen Honan has been working on a variety of wetland projects, two of which are along the Los Angeles River and relate to riverine habitat. She recently spent half a day on the Sugar Island hopper dredge that was dredging the LA harbor entrance channel. As part of an experimental capping program of the Environmental Protection Agency, they deposited material on top of a DDT-contaminated site.
  
  
• Megan Higgins, another of the first graduates of the joint MMA/JD program, is working as a coastal policy analyst for the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council. She is involved with habitat restoration projects. One project, the South Shore Habitat Restoration Project, is concerned with the coastal ponds in southern Rhode Island. She is also working on a management plan for Greenwich Bay.
  
  
• Lennox Hinds is a Senior Advisor on Oceans, Marine Affairs and Fisheries in the Canadian International Development Agency. He is the author of "Oceans Governance and the Implementation Gap," in 27 Marine Policy 349-356 (2003).
  
  
• Eric Hutchins works for the NOAA Restoration Center in Gloucester, Massachusetts. In his role as the Gulf of Maine Habitat Restoration Coordinator he provides financial and technical assistance to a wide range of coastal habitat restoration projects includiing dam removals and salt marsh restoration projects throughout the Gulf of Maine, including New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
  
  
• LCDR Keith Janssen (U.S. Coast Guard) left CG Headquarters in July of 2001 and assumed the duties of Executive Officer of Marine Safety Office Charleston. The unit's mission has been drastically changed since 9/11 with a much larger focus on port security than in the past. The unit still pursued the Coast Guard's environmental protection mission by referring an illegal discharge and two Oily Water Separator bypass cases to the U.S. Attorney with two additional cases referred to the International Maritime Organization as MARPOL violations. In September of 2002, MSO Charleston responded to a 12,500 gallon discharge from the M/V Ever Reach when it breached its hull on a submerged object in Charleston Harbor. The active response lasted nearly three months, with more than $1 million dollars expended to remove the oil from the harbor. Since that time the harbor has recovered well and only minimal impacts a year later could be found. In June of 2004, LCDR Janssen left Charleston and reported as a Coast Guard Fellow on the staff of Senator Susan Collins in her capacity as Chairperson of the Governmental Affairs Committee. While the committee is responsible for oversight of the Department of Homeland Security, where the Coast Guard is now located, it has a much broader mandate which should prove to be interesting. The Janssen's seventh grade daughter, while he was attending URI, is now a rising sophomore at the College of Charleston.
  
  
• Paula Jewell is the Executive Director of the Massachusetts Bays Estuary Association. The Massachusetts Bays Program (Mass Bays) is a partnership of citizens, communities, and government that strives to protect and enhance the coastal health and heritage of Massachusetts and Cape Cod Bays.
  
  
• David Kaiser is a Senior Policy Analyst, Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management, NOAA, Coastal Response Research Center, at the University of New Hampshire.
  
  
• Amy Knowlton works on marine mammal issues for the New England Aquarium in Boston.
  
  
• Jon Kurland is the Team Leader/Coordinator for Essential Fish Habitat in the Habitat Protection Division of the National Marine Fisheries Service.
  
  
• Marnie Laing is working with the National Trust for the Cayman Islands as the Development and Education Specialist for its conservation and environmental education programs.
  
  
• Yolanda Leon (Ph.D. 2004, Major professor: Dr. Pollnac) is currently a professor in the biology department of the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo, where she teaches both in Santo Domingo as well as in Hato Mayor, a rural area in eastern Dominican Republic. She is also continuing to work part-time with an environmental NGO called Grupo Jaragua, collaborating in different projects, including one on sea turtles and other projects concerning database management. In September-October 2004 she attended a training course in Japan on GIS and Biodiversity Information Systems. At the time that she prepared this paragraph, she was visiting Japan's Biodiversity Center, on the outskirts of Mount Fuji. The training course included ten participants from around the world including Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Senegal, Madagascar and Papua New Guinea.
  
  
• Haiqing Li is Deputy Director-General of the Department of International Cooperation in the State Oceanic Administration, People's Republic of China. He recently authored the article "Management of Coastal Mega-Cities--A New Challenge in the 21st Century," appearing in 27 Marine Policy 333-337 (2003).
  
  
• Captain Ted Lillestolen is the Associate Deputy Assistant Administrator for NOAA's Ocean Service.
  
  
• John Lopez, who received a John Knauss Fellowship, worked in the Washington office of Sen. Edward Kennedy where he dealt with coastal and fisheries issues. Much of his work addressed groundfish policy in the Gulf of Maine and on Georges Bank. Currently, he is the Legislative and Policy Analyst for the Coastal States Organization (CSO) in Washington, D.C. The CSO represents the governors of the 35 coastal states, territories and commonwealths of the U.S. At CSO he works on a wide variety of ocean/coastal issues including coral reefs and is drafting a fellowship/intern program between CSO and the Department of Marine Affairs.
  
  
• Carissa Lord is working with Pam Pogue at the Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency as the Mapping and Modernization Planner. She is involved with a consulting group on the state-wide Map Modernization effort, updating and digitizing the Flood Insurance Rate Maps in Rhode Island. Among other things, she hopes to increase community participation in the Community Rating System. Being on a very small team, she has the opportunity to get involved with a variety of assignments and recently attended, for example, the Blackstone River Valley forum in Lincoln, RI, where she gained a better understanding of the importance of watershed planning and how all stakeholders can play a role in hazard mitigation.
  
  
• Jung-Eun Kim is now at Cardiff University in the United Kingdom working on a Ph.D. degree.
  
  
• Kristin Mallek is a research analyst at the Urban Harbors Institute. Her primary interest is in the role of public education and public participation in the policy decision-making process and she has been involved with issues concerning coastal hazards, management plans for Nantucket and Madaket Harbors, and the Coastsweep Program, the coastal cleanup program sponsored annually by the state of Massachusetts.
  
  
• Jennifer McCann, an extension specialist at the Rhode Island Sea Grant/Coastal Resources Center at URI, is the recipient of URI's Outstanding Outreach Award at a May6, 2004 luncheon. She was cited by URI Provost Beverly Swan for her hard work, dedication, and commitment to the URI and state community.
  
  
• Elena McCarthy successfully defended her dissertation and was awarded a Ph.D. in Marine Affairs in May 2003. Her dissertation focused on the international regulation of ocean noise, a subject that has received increasing attention particularly because of possible impacts on marine mammals. Her Ph.D. research developed an integrated approach to ocean noise pollution that incorporates knowledge of physics, international law, and sound ecosystem management. As noted above, she is the author of the book International Regulation of Underwater Sound: Establishing Rules and Standards to Address Ocean Noise Pollution (Boston: Kluwer Academic, 2004). The book was written while she served as the Robert and Patricia Switzer Postdoctoral Fellow at the Woods Hole Oceanogaphic Institution. She is also the co-author of a GIS-based website that maps sources of ocean noise on New England's Stellwagen Bank---Mapping Anthropogenic Noise in the Sea: An Aid to Policy Development. Go to: www.whoi.edu/science/MPC/dept/research/ocean_noise/index.html. Her research has been presented to the ocean noise committee of the National Research Council and during 2004 she was invited to chair several panels at two international conferences, "Shipping Noise and Marine Mammals," held in Washington, D.C. and "Policy on Sound and Marine Mammals: An International Workshop" held in London and sponsored by the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission and the UK Joint Nature Conservation Committee.
  
  Elena has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and an M.S. in Ocean Engineering and has worked in the field of sonar and ocean acoustics for many years. Her past work includes research at international agencies (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization), the US Government (US Navy), non-profit organizations (Sea Education Association), as well as private industry (Rockwell International.) Her dissertation research was funded in part by the Switzer Foundation, which provided a fellowship in 2001, as well as by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's Marine Policy Center, where she was a guest student.
  
  
• Cmdr. E.J. McClure (USN) has taken command of one of the newest class of destroyers, the USS Arleigh Burke and is one of the five women currently in command of a U.S, Navy combatant. She notes that when she started her career the only ship on which she could serve was a repair ship. Times have changed. She writes that her work on the MMA degree and contact with classmates with a wide range of marine interests have provided her with a strong background in the complex legal, economic, and environmental aspects of the maritime domain. In her Navy service she has truly seen the world from Thailand to Dubai to Turkey to Italy, France, Crete, Spain, the UK, Scandinavia, and the Caribbean.
  
  
• David MacDuffee graduated in 2001 with the MMA/JD joint degree program and currently works with Tom Bigford (see above) in the Office of Habitat Conservation/Habitat Protection Division of the National Marine Fisheries Service in Silver Spring, Maryland. As part of the Essential Fish Habitat (EFH) program, he works on policy issues associated with implementing the EFH mandate under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.
  
  
• Sally McGee works with the Environmental Defense Oceans Program in Stonington, CT and has been appointed to a three-year term as the obligatory Connecticut member of the New England Fishery Management Council.
  
  
• Laurie McGilvray has been the Estuarine Reserves Division Chief in the National Oceanographic and Oceanic Administration. The National Estuarine Research Reserve System is a network of protected areas established for long-term research, education and stewardship. This partnership program between NOAA and the coastal states protects more than one million acres of estuarine land and water, which provides essential habitat for wildlife; offers educational opportunities for students, teachers and the public; and serves as living laboratories for scientists. In July 2006 she was detailed to the Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management (OCRM) Headquarters for four months to serve as the Acting Deputy Director.
  
  
• Alison Macrae (Demong) is working at the Massachusetts Bay National Estuary Program (MBP) as the South Shore field coordinator, out of the North and South Rivers Watershed Association (NSWRA) office. The MBP employs her to work with communities on a variety of projects and she operates as part of the NSWRA staff. This partnership is working out very well. Alison also reports that she and her husband, Ned, have moved from Cambridge to Norwell on the South Shore.
  
  
• LCDR Robert McFarland (U.S. Coast Guard) is serving as Associate Professor at the World Maritime University in Malmo, Sweden. The WMU is sponsored by the International Maritime Organization and Bob is teaching students from all over the world about IMO Conventions, maritime safety and environmental protection, and policy implementation. Bob and his wife, Pam, live outside of Malmo and their four children attend an international school.
  
  
• Thomas Marnane, a member of the first graduating class (1970), is a board member of the San Francisco Bay Planning Coalition and adisor to the Bay Conservation and Development Commission. He notes that he is still using his marine affairs education to contribute to the preservation of the California coastline.
  
  
• Catalina Martinez who earned a master's degree in oceanography as well as in marine affairs is expedition coordinator for NOAA's Office of Ocean Exploration. She is based at URI and serves as a liaison between NOAA, URI, and the Institute for Exploration and is responsible ensuring the success of several NOAA-funded oceanographic research expeditions each year.
  
  
• LCDR Dwight Mathers (U.S. Coast Guard), after receiving his MMA, served as the liaison between the Coast Guard and the U.S. Department of State on fisheries matters. In this capacity, he was involved in a variety of international negotiations relating to the management of the world's fishery resources. He is now stationed in Hawaii.
  
  
• Jesse Mechling is working for NOAA's Coastal Services Center (CSC) as a Northeast Regional Coastal Management Specialist based in Boston and at the University of New Hampshire. His position includes bringing CSC's products and services to state and local partners in the region. In addition, as part of his new position, Jesse is working on a number of regional governance and ecosystem-based management efforts in the Northeast. Last winter, Jesse also launched his photography website www.travelandnaturephoto.com
  
  
• LT Don Montoro has assumed command of the Coast Guard Gulf Fisheries Center in New Orleans. He is the Coast Guard representative at the Gulf of Mexico Fisheries Management Council and the Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission. Interesting issues that have arisen concern the use of vessel monitoring systems (VMS) and Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). He works closely with NOAA's Office for Law Enforcement and its General Counsel Enforcement and Litigation Branch.
  
  
• LCDR Kathy Moore (U.S. Coast Guard) is serving as the head of the Coast Guard's Aquatic Nuisance Species (ANS) Program and Chief of the Environmental Standards Division. She is involved with developing domestic regulations for the prevention of the introduction and spread of ANS via shipping, negotiating an international convention on ballast water through the International Maritime Organization (IMO), and directing research into assessing ballast water treatment technologies and enforcement techniques. After an intense and productive meeting of the IMO's Marine Environmental Protection Committee in July 2003 in London, the Draft Convention for the Control and Management of Ship's ballast Water and Sediments will go to a diplomatic conference in February 2004. She has also given several presentations at meetings and workshops on aquatic nuisances and helped prepare witnesses for Senate Subcommittee hearings on the reauthorization of legislation on that subject.
  
  
• Jackie Odell has taken on the position of Executive Director of the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition. This organization represents commercial fishermen and seeks to encourage regulators to make sensible rules for fisheries and educates the public about the fishing industry.
  
  
• Rebecca Padget is a 401/Coastal Zone Management Specialist in the state of Washington Department of Ecology's Shorelands and Environmental Assistance Program. She writes that this new position is an exciting move from environmental education and public involvement to doing more technical work. In this new position she is reviewing project proposals and applications ensuring that they comply with the Clean Water Act and state water quality standards, as well as protecting aquatic resources and mitigating adverse impacts. She is also determining whether projects are consistent with the Washington Coastal Zone Management Program and will get to conduct site inspections.
  
  
• Daniel Parrot is the author of a book, Tall Ships Down (Camden, Maine: International Marine/McGraw Hill, 2003). The book traces the history of a number of tall ships from their construction through their operations at sea.
  
  
• Jennifer Pereira is the Executive Director of the Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council, headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island.
  
  
• Medhat Rabie has returned to work in Egypt after completing work for the Master Marine Affairs degree and is now in charge of coastal developments in the Gulf of Aqaba.
  
  
• Paul Philippe Razafinjatovo is the Marine Program Coordinator for Conservation International in Madagascar. In this position he is involved in conducting a marine rapid assessment in Madagascar and developing a strategy for the conservation of marine biodiversity in Madagascar. The potential for establishment of marine protected areas is also being considered.
  
  
• Kevin Riddle is the Coast Guard Liaison Officer to the United States Department of State. He is assigned to the Bureau of Ocean, and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, Office of Marine Conservation (OES/OMC) to facilitate interagency coordination of international fisheries enforcement and compliance issues. In this capacity he coordinates Coast Guard participation in international fisheries negotiations and advises the U.S. Representative to various international organizations on fisheries enforcement and compliance issues. He also provides advice to the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans (OES/O) and the Director of the Office of Marine Conservation (OES/OMC) on at sea fisheries enforcement and compliance issues and coordinates Coast Guard obligations under various international fisheries agreements and monitors international fisheries issues for possible Coast Guard involvement. He notes that the URI Marine Affairs Program prepared him very well for this position.
  
  
• Nathan Sage has been working in the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi since 2002 and iscurrently the head of the Environment, Science, Technology and Health section. He has led a wide array of policy initiatives including dioxin remediation, nuclear fuel swapout and avian influenza planning. He is a board member of Village Focus International, an NGO that promotes social entrepreneurs and youth leadership in Laos and Cambodia. In fall 2007, Nathan will launch a climate change start-up entitled IndoChina Carbon to develop renewable energy and carbon abatement projects. Email: flyingdugong@hotmail.comng@hotmail.com
  
  
• Joudy Sangari has been working for the government of Indonesia as a lecturer at Sam Ratulangi University in Manado, North Sulawesi. He is a Ph.D. candidate in natural resources management at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia and the recipient of an Australian Agency for International Development Scholarship. On completion of his studies he will return to Indonesia.
  
  
• Christine Santora currently works for the Pew Institute for Ocean Science out of its New York City office. She recently co-authored a consensus paper on Ecosystem Based Fishery Management that was published in the journal Science, and continues to work on ecosystem-based fisheries management and other fishery management issues for the Pew Institute. In addition, she will be contributing a chapter on offshore wind for an upcoming book on sustainable energy.
  
  Christine Santora, Nichole Hade, and Jackie Odell are the joint authors of an article entitled "Managing Offshore Wind Developments in the United States: Legal, Environmental and Social Considerations Using a Case Study in Nantucket Sound," 47 Ocean and Coastal Management 141-164 (2004). This article examines the needs that must be addressed before widescale development of offshore wind occurs in U.S. water.
  
  
• LT. Daniels Schaeffer (USCG) is the commanding officer of the North Pacific Regional Fisheries Training Center (NPRFTC) in Kodiak, Alaska. He informs us of hosting a delegation of officials from the Fisheries Law Enforcement Command of the People's Republic of China in April 2005. The program provided training on the U.S. fisheries management system and the actual application of interntional fisheries law in practice. The visit of this delegation will further build cooperation between fisheries enforcement efforts of the United States and China. Dan relates that for several years the NPRFTC has hosted shipriders from China on U.S. Coast Guard cutters and aircraft to combat illegal driftnet fishing on the high seas. He notes that in 2003 the shiprider program delivered it first success, with joint US/PRC cooperation in seizing five Chinese vessels caught using illegal driftnets.
  
  
• Heidi Schuttenberg was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Thailand to study coral reef conservation. Her work built on related research that she conducted in Indonesia for the URI Coastal Resources Center.
  
  
• Pasquale Scida serves as the Endangered Species Coordinator for the Northeast Regional Office of the National Marine Fisheries Service. His duties include coordinating the implementation of the Endangered Species Act for species under NMFS jurisdiction in the Northeast. These include Atlantic salmon, shortnose sturgeon, sea turtles, and ESA-listed marine mammals.
  
  
• Tonia Selmeski is a coastal permitting analyst with the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection, Office of Long Island Sound Programs in Hartford.
  
  
• James Sha is the Deputy Director-General of the Fisheries Agency, Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan, in Taipei, Taiwan.
  
  
• Dah-Wen Shieh is Division Chief, Department of Fisheries, Bureau of Agriculture, in the Ministry of Economic Affairs in Taipei, Taiwan.
  
  
• Brad Spear is the Fishery Management Plan Coordinator for the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission in Washington D.C.
  
  
• Dr. Greg Stone is Vice-President for Global Marine Programs at the New England Aquarium. He recntly traveled to the coast of Thailand to survey the damage to coral reefs caused by the terrible tsunami of December 2004. It appears that, overall, coral reef damage in the Andaman Sea was light and that reef fish fared well.
  
  
• Mary Kate Stubljar is working with Ecological Resource Consultants, Inc. in Panama City Beach, Florida. Her responsibilities mainly involve dealing with developers and various governmental agencies, such the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and Army COE, on projects that occur near or on wetlands and vulnerable coastal lands.
  
  
• Elke Sutt works in the Coastal Programs section of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection's Office of Long Island Sound Programs as a municipal liaison to the coastal towns in the Thames River watershed. She is also coordinating the state's Clean Marina Program.
  
  
• Pete Tebeau is doing maritime consulting work with his own company, Marine Research Associates, LLC. His primary clients have been the Coast Guard, the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, and the University of Connecticut. Topic areas include oil spill prevention and response, maritime information systems, search and rescue planning, marine water quality monitoring, and general marine program management. He is currently living in Stonington, CT and restoring a 29-foot Rhodes Ranger sloop.
  
  
• Brian Thompson is the Director of the Office of Long Island Sound Programs in Connecticut.
  
  
• Steven Tucker is a coastal and marine resources specialist with the Cape Cod Commission in Barnstable, Massachusetts.
  
  
• Christophe Tulou served as the Executive Director of the Pew Oceans Commission. Prior to this appointment, he worked on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., first as a Sea Grant Fellow and later on the staff of Congressman Tom Carper of Delaware, who was a member of the House Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee. He later worked as Secretary of the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, where he was actively engaged in fisheries, coastal zone management, and pollution issues. In his role with the Pew Oceans Commission, he helped develop ocean policy options and recommendations and oversaw publication of the Commission's reports. Those reports are available online at www.pewtrusts.org/ideas/ideas_item.cfm?content_item_id=1635&content_type_id=8&issue_name=Protecting%20ocean%20life&issue=16&page=8&name=Grantee%20Reports.
  
  
• Vinton Valentine is a post-doc at the Ecosystem Center at the Marine Biological Lab in Woods Hole where he has been consulting for about a year and a half on marina-related topics. He just recently began working part-time with the Waquoit Bay NERR to update their management plan.
  
  
• Wendy Waller, an MMA/JD graduate, is very pleased to be working as a policy specialist at the new Explore the Bay Center on Field's Point in Providence. She has been involved in legal work relating to matters such as the LNG developments in the region, a desalinization project in Massachusetts, and comments on various applications before the RI Coastal Resources Management Council and the Department of Environmental Management.
  
  
• Susan Ware Harris works in the NOAA Office of International Affairs and has been appointed the Executive Director of the NOAA International Affairs Council. She continues her work on international oceans, small islands, as well as other environment and sustainable development issues. She notes that she works for another URI MAF alum: Bill Brennan (see above). On the personal side, she married Rhode Islander and URI alumnus Bob Harris in 1999 and they have two sons, Jonathan, born in May 2001 and William, born in August 2005.
  
  
• Eric Wiberg is Vice-President of RSR Partners (formerly The Directorship Search Group) and recruits talent for the shipping industry. At headquarters in Greenwich, CT, he specializes in head-hunting senior executives and board members for maritime companies in New England and Houston.

Additional department, faculty, student, and alumni news is added periodically.