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2020 CERF Webinar: COVID-19 and Estuarine Research: Impacts and Responses
Tuesday, July 21, 2020, 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM PDT
Category: CERF Events & Webinars

COVID-19 and Estuarine Research: Impacts and Responses

About the Webinar

The global pandemic has led to significant disruptions in the plans for and practice of estuarine research. For students and early career professionals, the circumstances are particularly challenging. In this webinar, a panel of three estuarine scientists will provide overviews of their observations and experiences from their unique institutional research perspectives in academia, government, and management. What happens when access to the field is blocked, or when the lab is closed in the middle of a thesis project? How does one complete a project for which the funding was once available but now is not? What is the impact of an unintended “gap year”?

Listen to real-world accounts from the coasts and join the conversation online with your questions for our experts.

Watch the Recording

This webinar has passed. If you are a member of CERF, you can access this past webinar in our Webinar Library.


Presenters

Autumn Oczkowski

Autumn Oczkowski currently is a researcher at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Atlantic Coastal Environmental Sciences Division in Narragansett, RI. She is a systems ecologist whose research often focuses on how anthropogenic nutrient loads impact coastal and freshwater ecosystems.  She uses tools such as stable isotopes (natural abundance and tracer), laboratory and greenhouse mesocosms, long-term field datasets, and fixed-site monitoring stations to examine the links between upstream nutrient runoff and riverine and estuarine food webs. Much of her current work also looks at the impacts of climate change on coastal ecosystems and the net impact of these changes on nutrient dynamics. She also works across scales, from individual organisms to entire estuaries, and across climatic zones, from temperate to tropical. Dr. Oczkowski earned a B.S. in Geology from Washington and Lee University, an M.S. in Earth Sciences, Geochemical Systems from the University of New Hampshire, and a Ph.D. in Biological Oceanography from the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography.

Jace Tunnell

Jace Tunnell is the director of the Mission-Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve at the University of Texas Marine Science Institute where he has been since 2014. Prior to the Reserve, Tunnell worked as the director of research and planning for the Coastal Bend Bays & Estuaries Program for nearly a decade on water quality and large scale wetland restoration. His conservation efforts include educating the public about plastic pollution, estuarine science, and the protection of our natural resources. We were named conservationist of the year in 2017 by the Coastal Conservation Association, and the 2020 Coastal Icon by Texas Sea Grant. He was president of the Coastal Bend Bays Foundation from 2016 to 2018 and is the founder of Nurdle Patrol, a national citizen science project tracking plastic pellet pollution to make policy changes. Tunnell received an M.S. in marine biology from Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi in 2001.

Karen McGlathery

Karen McGlathery is Professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, Lead PI of the Virginia Coast Reserve Long Term Ecological Research Program, and Director of UVA’s Environmental Resilience Institute. Her research focuses on the effects of environmental change, including climate, sea-level rise, eutrophication, and species invasions on coastal marine ecosystems. Her collaborative work with NGOs, universities and regional stakeholders addresses the resilience of coastal habitats, especially in the context of decisions for coastal adaptation to sea-level rise and storms. McGlathery’s group was the first to show the role of restoration in reinstating seagrass ‘blue carbon’ storage in coastal ecosystems. In addition to Virginia’s Eastern Shore, she and her students have worked in New England, Florida, Bermuda, Denmark, New Zealand, and Mozambique. She teaches courses in Global Coastal Change, Coastal Resilience, Water and Watershed Resilience, Estuarine Ecology, Coastal Oceanography, and Conservation. She serves on the Board of the Foundation of the Virginia State Arboretum and the Research and Education Advisory Committee of Virginia Sea Grant.  She received her Ph.D. from Cornell University.