ORAP Membership

Dr. Claudia Benitez-Nelson is the Senior Associate Dean and a Carolina Distinguished Professor in the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of South Carolina. Her research focuses on the biogeochemical cycling of nutrients, carbon, and contaminants, sinking particle fluxes, and the application of naturally occurring radionuclides in understanding coastal and open ocean processes. Over the past two decades Dr. Benitez-Nelson has authored or co-authored more than 130 peer-reviewed articles, including lead author publications in the journals Science and Nature, and has been continuously supported by substantial, multi-year research and education grants. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. She is the current Chair of the Ocean Studies Board of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. Dr. Benitez-Nelson earned B.S. degrees in chemistry and oceanography from the University of Washington and a Ph.D. in oceanography from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute/Massachusetts Institute of Technology Joint Program. 

Derek Brockbank is Executive Director of Coastal States Organization (CSO), which represents the nation’s Coastal States and Territories on ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes issues. With two decades of experience in Washington DC on coastal adaptation policy and organizational development, Derek is connecting state coastal management programs with federal agencies and resources to address the greatest coastal challenges facing society. Derek previously served as executive director for the American Shore & Beach Preservation Association (ASBPA) where he led the strategic planning and outreach, government affairs, and development goals of the nation’s leading organization advocating for beach and coastal restoration. Prior to starting with ASBPA, Derek worked as campaign director for a coalition effort to restore the Mississippi River Delta and Coastal Louisiana, and was part of a gulf-wide campaign to pass the RESTORE Act, securing billions of dollars for Gulf Coast restoration. This followed up on work at the National Wildlife Federation on climate adaptation. Derek got his degree in political science and environmental studies from the University of Chicago. He grew up in New York City and got his coastal education from an early age playing on the beaches of Long Island, and kayaking and fishing in Peconic Bay.

Jorge E. Corredor retired in 2016 from the Faculty of the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez where he served as professor of Chemical Oceanography for 38 years. He later served as Professor of Earth and Atmospheric Science at the City College of New York and, simultaneously, as Distinguished Research Scientist at the CCNY-associated NOAA Center for Earth Systems Sciences and Remote Sensing Technologies. His 159 publications span the fields of oceanography, coastal ocean observing, biogeochemistry, marine pollution, analytical chemistry, and ocean climatology. Professor Corredor has extensive experience in international scientific affairs having served on the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research, affiliated to the International Council for Science, in representation of the US Ocean Studies Board of the US National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, and as Programme Officer at the Nairobi, Kenya headquarters of the United Nations Environment Programme. He also served on committees and chaired numerous programmatic meetings for the Caribbean arm (IOCARIBE) of UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Commission and chaired its CARIPOL Caribbean Pollution Program focusing on petroleum pollution. Professor Corredor has been a visiting scholar at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the Center for Advanced Studies and Research at Merida, Yucatan, Mexico, and the Universities of Vigo and Barcelona in Spain.

Danielle Dickson has lived and worked in Alaska since 2001 and brings an Arctic perspective to the ORAP. She began her career in marine science in the North Atlantic, and she specialized in marine mammal research for several years. She worked for an Alaska Native Marine Mammal Co-management Organization and a private consulting firm in Alaska before joining the North Pacific Research Board in 2011. In her role as Senior Program Manager for NPRB’s Integrated Ecosystem Research Program and Long-Term Monitoring Program, she works to innovate mechanisms to support interdisciplinary marine science research in partnership with other organizations and to strengthen the inclusion of Indigenous participation in research. In her role as NPRB’s Chief Officer for Collaboration and Synthesis, she identifies synergies among research programs and facilitates opportunities for coordination and collaboration. Ms. Dickson serves as a Co-Lead of the Marine Ecosystems Community of Practice for the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee (IARPC). She also participates regularly in the Pacific Arctic Group to coordinate plans for marine science research with international colleagues. 

The Honorable Tim Gallaudet, PhD, Rear Admiral, U.S. Navy (ret) is the CEO of Ocean STL Consulting and host of The American Blue Economy Podcast. He is a member of the Ocean Studies Board in the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, and he serves on the Board of Directors for Force Blue, the Advisory Council for Project Recover, the Editorial Board for the Marine Technology Reporter Magazine, the Director’s Council for Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and the Advisory Board for Ocean Futures at the World Wildlife Fund. Gallaudet is a fellow at The Explorer’s Club, a distinguished graduate of the University of California, San Diego, and recipient of the U.S. Coast Guard Distinguished Public Service Award. He formerly served as the acting Undersecretary and Assistant Secretary of Commerce, acting and Deputy Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and Oceanographer of the Navy.  He has a bachelor’s degree from the U.S.  Naval Academy, and master’s and doctoral degrees from Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Dr. Eunha Hoh is a Professor of Environmental Health in the School of Public Health at San Diego State University. Her primary research interests focus on the investigation of diverse pollutants in the environment and their impact on human health. Her current research projects focus on ocean and human health, fate and transport of environmental contaminants, and discovery of novel contaminants and their sources. Dr. Hoh developed a nontargeted analytical approach for detection of a broad range of organic chemicals in various types of biological and environmental samples using novel instrumentation. Using this approach, she discovered and identified previously unknown contaminants and has implemented the technology on comprehensive contaminant analysis for environmental monitoring, exposure assessment and remediation/treatment efficiency assessment. As an example, she and her research group identified a large suite of contaminants in marine mammals and California condors in Southern California Bight. The studies provided importance of advanced analytical technology to understand the severity of DDT pollution in the region. She was one of six PIs of the Scripps Center for Oceans and Human Health. She was a Scientific Guidance Panel member for the California Environmental Contaminant Biomonitoring Program. She is a member of the California Ocean Protection Council’s Science Advisory Team, an expert interdisciplinary group formed to address issues impacting the state’s coastal and marine ecosystems. She holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Science from Indiana University, Bloomington.

Sandra Knight is the President of WaterWonks LLC, District of Columbia. Capitalizing on her previous experiences as a research engineer at the University of Maryland, a Senior Executive at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and a technical director for research at the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), she now works with her academic partners and clients providing expertise in national policy, strategic planning, and technical matters in the areas of disaster resilience, flood risk management, hydraulic engineering and marine transportation.  She currently serves as a US PIANC Commissioner, as Vice Chair, Marine Board and member of the US Ocean Decade Committee, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) and as an advisor to the Women’s Aquatic Network.  She is a registered professional engineer in Tennessee, a Diplomate Water Resource Engineer, and a Diplomate Navigation Engineer. She is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Meteorological Society, Sigma Xi, and a Fellow for PIANC.  Dr. Knight holds a Ph.D from University of Memphis in Civil Engineering. 

Dr. Tommy Moore earned a PhD in Oceanography from the University of Delaware, with a focus on marine chemistry and climate change impacts on the marine environment. He is currently working as an oceanographer with the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission (NWIFC), supporting the Treaty Tribes of northwest Washington with challenges related to marine climate change and its impacts on fisheries, and other emerging issues such as offshore wind development and marine carbon dioxide removal. Prior to this he worked to support the Pacific Island Countries and Territories on issues related to oceanography and ocean observing, and he has led and participated in studies looking at biological productivity in coastal waters, nutrient and carbon cycling, and small-scale variability on ocean acidification. Dr. Moore is currently the co-chair for the Ocean Acidification Sentinel Site, vice-chair of the Pacific Fishery Management Council’s (PFMC) Ecosystem Working Group, at-large representative on the PFMC Scientific and Statistical Committee, and is the NWIFC representative on the  Northwest Association of Networked Ocean Observing Systems (NANOOS) Governing Council.

Claire B. Paris-Limouzy is a Professor of Ocean Sciences at the Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Sciences. She is a biological oceanographer with a diverse background in larval ecology, coastal oceanography, numerical modeling, biochemistry, and engineering. She has over 170 publications and is editor of Springer legacy books of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill. Paris leads a team of researchers and students developing and maintaining state-of-the-art open-source tools used in NOAA fisheries stock assessment. They are also broadly used to predict marine population connectivity networks, critical for conservation and management issues, and to track the dispersion and fate of oil spills and other pollutants, from microplastics to radioactive material. Paris served as PI for Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GOMRI) consortia, leading oil-spill modeling research. While primarily an academic, she has engaged directly with the industry through the US Patents and Trademark Office as an inventor of both software and instruments, and indirectly with the American Petroleum Industry through GOMRI. Paris also interacts with federal agencies through their NSF, NAS, and NOAA research funding, committees, and publications of reports for the general public. Paris is the recipient of the prestigious American Geophysical Union Rachel Carson Lecturer and served as President of the Early Life History Section of the American Fishery Society. She has participated in more than 20 oceanographic missions and expeditions all over the world, and is an accomplished record holder freediver, maintaining a special connection with the ocean. Paris is interdisciplinary at heart with a Ph.D. in Coastal Oceanography from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. 

Purnima Ratilal-Makris is the Director of the Laboratory for Ocean Acoustics and Ecosystem Sensing and a full Professor at Northeastern University. Prof. Ratilal-Makris has over 28 years experience in experimental and theoretical research and development, instrumentation design and fabrication in ocean acoustics and remote sensing of ocean biology, ecology, oceanography, geophysics and defense from her work at Northeastern University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and DSO National Laboratories. Having significant expertise in the design and fabrication of large-aperture ocean-acoustic hydrophone arrays and analysis of large ocean acoustic data sets, Prof. Ratilal-Makris' work includes acoustic localizations, tracking of undersea objects, ocean waveguide acoustic propagation and scintillation, directional ambient noise or soundscape analysis, scattering and reverberation data analysis and model development. She has led or contributed to the design and conduct of roughly ten major offshore experiments in the US Northeast coast, the Norwegian Arctic, and the Southeast Asian Seas. Professor Ratilal-Makris holds a PhD in ocean engineering and acoustics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2002). She was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2008 and is a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America.

Edward J. Saade has 45+ years of international hydrographic, coastal zone, geospatial survey and ocean engineering experience. Currently, he is president of EJS Solutions, providing consultancy services in ocean sciences and technology.  From January 2014-May 2022, Mr. Saade served as Americas Regional Director for the global energy services company Fugro, ultimately overseeing all Marine and Land Divisions in the Region, and as the President of Fugro (USA) Inc.  He oversaw the expansion of Fugro’s capabilities to become the world leader in hydrographic LiDAR, multi-beam and backscatter data acquisition, mapping techniques for charting, site-characterization, coastal zone, essential fish habitat analysis. These techniques have been directly applied to the offshore windfarm, oil and gas and other construction industries and a broad number of national hydrographic offices.  By his retirement in mid-2022, Fugro was the leading provider for offshore windfarm site -characterization projects in all US waters. He holds a B.S. in geology from the UC Santa Barbara, and completed Ph.D. courses and research in marine geophysics at the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics. Mr. Saade is a California Registered Geophysicist, and authored/coauthored over 70 reports and studies related to seafloor geology and sub-bottom conditions. He served eight years as a member of NOAA’s Hydrographic Services Review Panel, including serving as the chairperson for 3 years.

Dr. Ana Spalding is the Director of the Adrienne Arsht Community-Based Resilience Solutions Initiative and Staff Scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), and Associate Professor of Marine and Coastal Policy at Oregon State University. Dr. Spalding has an applied interdisciplinary social science background in economics, marine affairs and policy, and environmental studies; and approximately 20 years of applied experience in international development, conservation, and environmental consulting in Panama and the US. Broadly, her research group studies drivers of global change, impacts of that change on the most vulnerable communities, and what we as a society can do to better respond to those changes and impacts. At STRI, she is advancing interdisciplinary approaches to resilience science and community-based solutions to pressing environmental problems through research, training, and engagement. At OSU she offered several US Ocean Policy courses and guest lectures, and supervised graduate student research related to ocean uses and management across a variety of themes such as marine protected areas (MPAs), offshore renewable energy, fisheries and aquaculture, and adaptation to climate change. Dr. Spalding is committed to interdisciplinarity and collaboration as a critical framework for co-creating innovative and just solutions to coupled social-environmental crises facing our oceans.

Amy Trice is a policy expert and scientist advancing solutions that integrate marine industry, conservation, and science in ocean management decisions. She is the Senior Program Director at the Northeast Regional Ocean Council focusing on regional ocean planning and ocean and coastal management. Amy has worked extensively on integrated management policies with a depth of knowledge on U.S. domestic ocean policy, offshore wind, agency decision-making and permitting processes, ocean data, freshwater systems and stormwater infrastructure, and federal appropriations.  Her research and policy expertise has informed congressional staff as well as state and federal agencies on the value of comprehensive and coordinated ocean policies for economic and ecosystem resilience. She recently collaborated with the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy and currently serves on the Environmental Law Institute Ocean Council. Amy graduated from the Odum School of Ecology at the University of Georgia with an MS in Ecology. Her research focused on aquatic ecosystems, analyzing food web theory and predator-prey dynamics. Publications including Nature, Science Magazine, Bloomberg, National Geographic, NPR, Freshwater Biology, and Eos have interviewed Amy or published her work.

Dr. Maria Tzortziou is the Martin and Michele Cohen Endowed Professor of Environmental Sciences at the Center for Discovery and Innovation of the City College, City University of New York, and Director of Research and Applications at the CREST Remote Sensing Earth Institute. She is also Affiliate Professor with Columbia University/LDEO and Senior Research Scientist at NASA Goddard, where she serves as the Deputy Program Applications Lead for NASA’s PACE satellite mission. Dr. Tzortziou has extensive experience in ocean science, marine technology, and policy. She leads cross-disciplinary research that integrates advanced satellite remote sensing technologies with multidisciplinary datasets and models to assess human-ecosystem interactions, and the impact of multiple environmental stressors on the biogeochemistry, ecology, and biodiversity of inland and ocean ecosystems. Dr. Tzortziou serves as an expert on numerous interagency advisory and leadership boards relevant to ocean science and policy, including the Science Steering Committee for the Ocean Carbon Biogeochemistry Program, the Science leadership Board for the North American Carbon Program, and the Long Island Sound Study Program Science and Technical Advisory Committee. She is the Science Lead for Oceans and Coasts at the NOAA Center for Earth System Sciences and Remote Sensing Technologies. She is co-Lead on the Science Definition and Implementation Team for NASA’s next major field campaign program in the Arctic, and the Applied Science Lead for GLIMR, NASA’s first geostationary hyperspectral ocean color mission.

Violet Sage Walker is Chair of the Northern Chumash Tribal Council (NCTC) and Nominator of the proposed Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary (CHNMS). Her expertise guides NCTC’s multifaceted work, with decades of experience in cultural and environmental resource management and a decade working on the CHNMS campaign. She travels globally sharing knowledge on collaborative management, social justice, and Tribal equity. Her associations include being a founding member of the Indigenous Ocean Solidarity Alliance; U.C. Berkeley CLEE’s California Offshore Wind Stakeholder Engagement Convening; testifying before the House Natural Resources Committee on Offshore Wind; and her numerous presentations, like the 2023 Capitol Hill Ocean Week panel: Building Resilience Through Ocean-Based Climate Solutions. Violet is also collaborating with Stanford University’s Dr. Steve Palumbi to design and implement an innovative project combining Environmental DNA and Traditional Ecological Knowledge to understand the biodiversity of the Chumash heritage waters. After nearly a decade in consultation on wind energy, Diablo Canyon decommissioning, and solar development, Violet offers a unique perspective on pitfalls to avoid and practices for equitable inclusion of local communities. Her leadership is backed by an understanding of what it means to take care of our place, be good stewards, and foster community.

Dr. Kawika Winter is a biocultural ecologist who operates at the confluence of research, policy, and resource management.  He is the Director of the Heʻeia National Estuarine Research Reserve in Hawaiʻi, which is one of the nation’s leading models for the integration of Indigenous knowledge in research, policy, and decision making. Under his leadership, it has become one of the best examples of how NOAA can be responsive to the needs of Indigenous Peoples through collaborative management and collaborative research.  Dr. Winter has faculty appointments within various departments at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa – namely, ‘Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology,’ ‘Life Sciences,’ and ‘Natural Resources and Environmental Management’.  His work supports diversity, equity, and inclusion in ocean sciences through graduate student mentoring, public speaking, policy analysis, and advisory positions – including as an executive member of the Sanctuary Advisory Council for NOAA’s Hawaiian Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary.  As an active research scientist, Dr. Winter examines the ecological foundations of Indigenous resource management as a means to understand the drivers of ancestral abundance.  He has published extensively on this topic, and does so with the aim of influencing policy in ways that will allow humanity to co-thrive with our oceans in the future.