WHO WE ARE

Overview

The Measuring the Effects of Catch Shares Project is conducted by a team of experts from academic institutions and private consulting firms. Team members were selected through an open call for letters of interest based on their knowledge, experience, and novel approaches to analyzing the effects of catch share programs using an indicator-based approach.

  • Robert Trumble, Jill Swasey and Graeme Parkes of MRAG Americas, Inc., provide project leadership and management.
  • Suzanne Iudicello develops and analyzes the governance and program design indicators. Ms. Iudicello is also a project lead.
  • Peter Taylor of Waterview Consulting plans and implements the communications strategy for the project.
  • Tim Essington, Trevor Branch, and Peter Kuriyama of the University of Washington develop and analyze the ecological indicators.
  • Marcus Hartley and Donald Schug of Northern Economics develop and analyze the economic indicators.
  • Michael Downs of Northern Economics develops and analyzes the social indicators.

Bios

Project Leadership and Management

Robert Trumble, Ph.D. (Vice President, MRAG Americas) has extensive experience in marine fishery science and management, fishery habitat protection, and oceanography. Before joining MRAG Americas in 2000, he served fourteen years as senior biologist of the International Pacific Halibut Commission, ten years at the Washington Department of Fisheries, and six years at the U.S. Naval Oceanographic Office. He has been appointed to the Scientific and Statistical Committees of the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council and the Pacific Fishery Management Council; the Groundfish Management Team of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council; and the Advisory Committee of the Washington Sea Grant Program. Dr. Trumble holds a Ph.D. in fisheries from the University of Washington. www.mragamericas.com/about/our-team/#Robert-Trumble

Jill SwaseyJill Swasey, M.S. (Marine Scientist, MRAG Americas) holds a M.S. in zoology from the University of New Hampshire. Her professional experience includes research and analysis of federal fisheries policy and management, decision support tools for marine spatial planning, ecosystem-based fisheries management, development of educational and outreach materials, stakeholder engagement, and contribution to the development of guiding principles for fisheries monitoring programs. She has coordinated working groups that developed indicators for fisheries management, identified best practices in fisheries management, and developed a standardized process for setting annual catch limits in federally managed fisheries. www.mragamericas.com/about/our-team/#Jill-Swasey

Graeme Parkes, Ph.D. (Vice President, MRAG Americas) holds a Ph.D. in fisheries science from Imperial College London. He has more than two decades of professional experience in fisheries and decision support tools for marine environmental management; fishery resource assessment; marine fisheries development; information management systems; resource survey design; fisheries observer programs; monitoring, control, and surveillance of fisheries; fisheries development policy; and strategic planning. He was a member of the European Union Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries from 2007 to 2010 and since 1991 has been a member of the United Kingdom delegation to the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources. His recent projects include guidelines for assessing data-poor fisheries, analysis of rights-based instruments for fisheries management, and a framework for assessing fishery discard policies. www.mragamericas.com/about/our-team/#Graeme-Parkes

Governance and Program Design Indicators

Suzanne Iudicello, J.D. (Principal, Iudicello Consulting) earned her J.D. from the National Law Center at George Washington University. She consults on fishery management policy to state and federal government agencies, foundations, fishing associations, and conservation organizations. She has conducted reviews of the New England groundfish buyout, the Cape Cod Hook and Line Sector Program, and the Pacific coast groundfish draft environmental impact statement and port socioeconomic impact statement. She evaluated the potential applicability of rights-based systems to community-based fishery management in Port Orford, Oregon. She served on the indicator design committee for the State of the Nation’s Ecosystems report produced by the Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment.

Ecological Indicators

Tim EssingtonTim Essington, Ph.D. (Associate Professor, University of Washington) holds a M.S. in fisheries and wildlife conservation from the University of Minnesota and a Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is a marine fisheries ecologist whose research focuses on interactions between human activities and marine food webs and on the effectiveness of fishery management approaches. He works in ecosystems ranging from estuaries to the open ocean, and he uses a wide variety of quantitative techniques to evaluate how ecological systems respond to fishing. He has published numerous peer-reviewed scientific articles in journals such as Fisheries, Fish and Fisheries, Limnology and Oceanography, Ecological Applications, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. fish.washington.edu/people/essington/

Trevor Branch, Ph.D. (Assistant Professor, University of Washington) holds a Ph.D. in aquatic and fishery sciences from the University of Washington. He is a quantitative fisheries scientist who has published multiple papers detailing the effects of catch-share fisheries. In his research, he has compared the U.S. west coast fishery with the catch share system in place in British Columbia, examining discards, revenues, fleet sizes, and changes in fishing behavior, in addition to reviewing the ecological effects of catch share programs. He has published numerous peer-reviewed scientific articles in journals including Science, Nature, Trends in Ecology and Evolution, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Fish and Fisheries. fish.washington.edu/people/branch/

Peter Kuriyama, B.A. (Ph.D. Student, University of Washington) holds a B.A. in biology from the College of Creative Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His dissertation research focuses on the effects of catch shares in North America and on stock assessment methodology. He has published scientific papers in Fisheries Research and Marine Policy and contributed to the assessment of petrale sole for the Pacific Fishery Management Council.

Economic and Social Indicators

Marcus HartleyMarcus Hartley, M.S. (Vice President & Senior Economist, Northern Economics) holds a M.S. in agricultural and resource economics from Oregon State University and has more than twenty years of experience in fisheries economics. He has completed fisheries-related projects for the Pacific Fishery Management Council, Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission, NOAA Fisheries Service regional offices (Alaska, Pacific Northwest, Western Pacific, Gulf of Mexico, and Northeast), and other federal, state, and local agencies and non-government organizations. Previously, he was senior economist at the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, and he has worked on nearly every allocation, access, and catch share issue for Alaska’s groundfish, halibut, crab, and salmon fisheries since 1989. http://northerneconomics.com/our-people/marcus-hartley/

Donald Schug, Ph.D. (Socioeconomic Analyst, Northern Economics) has professional experience in a wide range of fisheries-related research and applied work in the United States and abroad. As a consultant with NEI, Dr. Schug has conducted several economic and social analyses of fisheries that are currently managed under catch share programs or for which such programs are proposed. Particularly relevant studies to which he contributed include the development of an analytical approach for an environmental review of the Pacific Coast groundfish trawl fishery rationalization program; a summary of the economic regulatory analysis of the fishery management plan amendments creating the Pacific Coast groundfish trawl fishery rationalization program; an analysis of cooperative arrangements to manage the financial risk associated with constraining species catch in the Pacific Coast groundfish trawl fishery following rationalization program implementation; and a post-implementation evaluation of the BSAI crab rationalization program. http://northerneconomics.com/our-people/don-schug/

Michael Downs, Ph.D. (Senior Social Scientist, Northern Economics) has 29 years experience on complex projects throughout the United States, including specialized fisheries experience in social impact assessment (SIA), socioeconomics, environmental justice, subsistence, and traditional-use issues. Clients have included NOAA Fisheries Service and its affiliated North Pacific, Pacific, and Caribbean Fishery Management Councils, among others. Catch share specific expertise includes leading the comprehensive pre-, three-year post-, and five-year post-implementation SIAs of the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands crab rationalization program, as well as the SIA for the pollock fishery coop/catch share program. He is currently researching social impacts that would result from changes to halibutprohibited species catch limits for the Gulf of Alaska groundfishery. http://northerneconomics.com/our-people/mike-downs/

Communications

Peter Taylor, M.A. (Principal, Waterview Consulting) holds a B.A. in biology from Williams College and a M.A. in marine ecology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and published peer-reviewed research on global patterns of biodiversity. Following graduate school, Mr. Taylor worked as a freelance writer and photographer for national and international magazines, as a university staff science writer, and as an editor at a magazine publishing company. Since founding Waterview Consulting in 2000, he has collaborated with numerous organizations across the U.S. and internationally to advance natural resource management and policy through strategic communications. His previous projects include planning and implementation of a five-year regional science translation initiative; scoping and building of science-related websites and interactive maps; establishment of social media presences for clients; and writing, editing, and design of reports and other printed materials. waterviewconsulting.com/about

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