Biography

My proposed Ph.D. research aims to integrate data from the current, varied inshore rockfish survey techniques, and to develop and apply Management Procedure Evaluation (MPE) methods to quantitatively evaluate the potential outcome of current and proposed management decisions for these species in British Columbia.  This will include examination of the utility of visual biomass estimation techniques and investigation of how to combine habitat data with detailed, multispecies, spatial hook by hook data, in order to eventually employ these measures to decrease variability in the catch indices provided by a typical inshore rockfish survey.

Prior to joining the Fisheries Centre, I completed my Masters with Dr. George Rose (Fisheries Conservation Group) at Memorial University of Newfoundland, where I  investigated the persistence of changes in abundance, behaviour, biology (growth and condition) of Grand Banks capelin (Mallotus villosus) that followed the cold period of the early 1990s and the collapse of the northern Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua).  Regional changes in capelin diet, compared to historical spring prey consumption, suggested bottom-up forcing of ecosystem change in the Northwest Atlantic.  Following this, I was employed as a Biologist with the Groundfish section of the Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo, BC, writing inshore rockfish survey data reports and participating in the annual Strait of Georgia inshore rockfish longline survey.