|
Division:
|
FRAM
|
|
Status:
|
Federal, NOAA Fisheries
|
|
Phone:
|
206-860-3480
|
|
Email:
|
send e-mail
|
|
Teams:
|
NWFSC Publications
|
|
Background
Melissa joined FRAM in April 2007. She is currently finishing her Ph.D. with Dr. Andre Punt at the University of Washington working on understanding how climate and fishing effects on populations can be best included in age structured stock assessments and the robust estimation of biomass reference points. Melissa began working for the NWFSC in July 2002 via the National Sea Grant/NMFS joint graduate fellowship in population dynamics. She also worked on the recent stock assessment for southern area petrale sole. Prior to her arrival in Seattle Melissa worked with the U.S. Department of State, Office of Marine Conservation as a Knauss Fellow where she focused on fisheries issues in the Asia Pacific region. In Columbus, Ohio, she worked for the U.S.G.S. Water Resources Division with the GAP Analysis program. Melissa also lived in Japan as NSF Summer Institute Fellow and worked with the Japanese Geological Survey digitally mapping and ground truthing coral reef habitats. Melissa received a B.A. in Life Sciences from Otterbein College, and a M.S. in Environmental Sciences from The Ohio State University where her thesis focused on GIS based modeling of invasive Dreissenid mussels in Lake Erie.
Current Research
Melissa is currently working on a variety of topics in support of the stock assessment process. Research areas include 1) simulation modeling to evaluate the type I and type II statistical error rates when including environmental impacts on recruitment in stock assessment models as a move towards integrating ecosystem considerations in single species stock assessment models, 2) evaluating alternative estimators for commonly-used biological reference points used in catch control rules: the level of unfished spawning biomass (B0), the spawning biomass corresponding to maximum sustainable yield (BMSY), and the current size of the stock in relation to B0, 3) incorporating environmental data into rebuilding analyses for overfished stocks, and 4) using the bomb radiocarbon chronometer for age validation of petrale sole as well as investigating time varying changes in growth of petrale sole.
|
