Jediah Bishop
Barry Brake
Joseph Chojnacki
Roger Davis
Scott Ferguson
Chris Kelley
Stacy Ladnier
Mark Leicmonas
Francis Lichowski
Emily Lundblad
Blake Martin
Charles Menza
Seth A. Mogk
Tony Montgomery
John Rooney
David Sallis
John Stange
Paul Trakimas
Robert Wilson
Operation Laser Line 2006 Explorers
Jediah Bishop
Survey Technician
Oceanic Imaging Consultants, Inc.
Jediah Bishop is originally from Southern Mississippi. He received a Bachelor of Science in Marine Science from Hawaii Pacific University and is currently working as a Survey Technician for Oceanic Imaging Consultants, Inc., who makes software that acquires sonar and laser data, processes it and ultimately creates images from the mysteries that lie in the deep.
Joseph Chojnacki
Marine Ecology Research Specialist
Joint Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research
Born in Wisconsin, Joe spent his childhood overseas attending American international schools in Burkina Faso (West Africa), Pakistan, India, and Egypt. He returned to the U.S. to attend university at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, where he majored in Biology. After graduating, he spent a couple of years traveling, during which time he worked at a newspaper, did turtle conservation work, guided whitewater rafting trips, tracked wolves, and interned with the Douglas County Forestry Department in Wisconsin.
Joe moved to Hawaii in 2001 to join NOAA Fisheries’ marine debris removal program in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands. He participated in three seasons of marine debris removal at Kure and Pearl & Hermes Atolls, all the while becoming more and more involved in Coral Reef Ecosystem Division’s (CRED) survey cruises around the Pacific, specializing in benthic habitat surveys.
In 2003, Joe entered the Master’s program in Geography at UH-Manoa, and at the same time joined CRED’s mapping group. He is close to completing his thesis, a study of how wave power influences the shape of coral reefs.
Roger Davis
Software Engineer
University of Hawaii
Roger Davis has been a software engineer for the Hawaii Mapping Research Group at the University of Hawaii since 1991.
Scott Ferguson
Lead Logistics Coordinator
NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystems Division
Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center
Scott leads the Coral Reef Ecosystem Division’s benthic habitat mapping team, a group that is responsible for developing maps of the coral reef environment throughout Hawaii, Guam, the Mariana Islands, American Samoa and other U.S.-affiliated Pacific islands. These maps are used by ocean resource managers and scientists throughout the Pacific to help understand coral reef processes. Since graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1978 Scott has participated in dozens of surveys around the world in support of geophysical research, nautical charting and underwater cable installations. He is particularly interested in the design, development and installation of shipboard oceanographic and mapping systems. On this cruise he hopes to learn how laser-based survey systems can be used to complement more commonly used sonar mapping tools.
Chris Kelley
Program Biologist
Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratories
Stacy Ladnier
OE Data Manager
General Dynamics
National Coastal Data Development Center
Stacy is the Technical Lead for the Cruise Information Management System (CIMS). CIMS is being developed by NCDDC to assist in automating end-to-end data management for NOAA's Office of Ocean Exploration (OE) expeditions. She is joining this expedition to conduct the first sea trial for the web-based at sea information collection portion of CIMS. Stacy received a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics, with an emphasis on Computer Science, from the University of Southern Mississippi.
Francis Lichowski
Seabed Mapping Specialist
Joint Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research
Emily Lundblad
GIS Specialist
Joint Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research
As a Geographic Information Science (GIS) Specialist, Emily Lundblad works for the NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center in the Coral Reef Ecosystem Division’s, Pacific Island Benthic Habitat Mapping Center. While at sea (and back on shore), she assists in seafloor mapping with real time multibeam bathymetry and backscatter data acquisition, post processing, map production, and spatial analysis. Starting out with a Bachelor of Science in GIS at Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi and growing up in Corpus Christi, a port city and beach town in one, she chose to apply her digital mapping and analysis skills to coastal and marine environments. She pursued the degree of Master of Science in Geography with emphasis in Marine Resource Management at Oregon State University where she developed a passion for working in and helping to sustain coral reef ecosystems. Emily has worked for NOAA for 2 years. Outside of seafloor mapping, she enjoys God’s creation of wonderful Hawaii by dabbling in hiking, surfing, walking, beach going, kiting, and camping.
Blake Martin
LLSS Operator
Scientific Applications International Corporation
Charles Menza
Spatial Ecologist
NOAA Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment
Charlie Menza is a spatial ecologist in the Biogeography Team of NOAA’s Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment. He has a Bachelor of Science from McGill University in Biology and Environmental Sciences and a Master of Science from the University of Toronto in Zoology. For the past three years Charlie has been working on projects which merge spatial modeling, geographic information systems, and statistics to better understand the linkages between reef fish and benthic habitats, and to produce more efficient reef fish sampling methods. He is also a NOAA diver and spends several weeks a year conducting reef fish surveys. On this mission Charlie will be observing the use and products of the laser line scanner. He is especially interested in linking benthic habitat maps derived from the scanner to reef fish ecology.
Seth A. Mogk
LLSS Supervisor
Scientific Applications International Corporation
Seth Mogk, currently a Marine Project Engineer with Science Applications International Corporation’s Marine Operations Division, will be leading the Laser Line Scan technical group on this cruise. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Earth Sciences from the Pennsylvania State University, concentrating in Geography. He started working at sea in 1984 with a commercial seismic survey company, and then spent 15 years with Scripps Institution of Oceanography as Marine Technician and later Geophysical Engineer, before joining SAIC in 2003. Seth specializes in the technical aspects of geophysical methods data acquisition, including acoustic (multibeam echosounding, sidescan sonar, seismic), magnetometry, and now laser light.
Tony Montgomery
Marine Biologist
Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources
Division of Aquatic Resources
Tony Montgomery earned a bachelors degree in Zoology from the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 1998. He has worked in the aquarium, aquaculture, and resource management fields. In 2003, he joined the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources, Division of Aquatic Resources. Since then he has worked on deep-water corals and invasive species issues. In 2004, Tony conducted an extensive assessment of the black coral population in the Au’au Channel. His interests include using mix gas closed circuit rebreathers to study the deep coral reefs and is a member of the Association of Marine Exploration.
John Rooney
Chief Scientist
Joint Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research
Dr. John Rooney will be Chief Scientist for the cruise. He has worked for the NOAA Pacific Island Fisheries Science Center in the Coral Reef Ecosystem Division’s Pacific Island Benthic Habitat Mapping Center for three years. He is primarily responsible for mapping biologically-important seafloor characteristics using multibeam data and optical imagery obtained from camera sled tows, ROVs and other sources. John holds a Ph.D. in Coastal geology from the University of Hawaii and an Master of Science in Biological Oceanography from the same institution. He has lived in Hawaii for more than 20 years and worked in, on, or around the ocean for most of that period. When he isn't spending time with his wife and 8-month old son, John enjoys scuba diving on deeper coral reefs around the islands with a closed circuit rebreather, surfing, and skydiving.
David Sallis
OE Web Coordinator
General Dynamics
National Coastal Data Development Center
David was born in 1964 and grew up in Jackson, Mississippi. He attended the College of Charleston for three years from 1982 - 1985 and completed his bachelor's degree at Millsaps College in Jackson. He earned his master's degree in computer science from the University of Southern Missisippi in 2004. He has been a computer programmer for nearly 20 years, working as a contractor to the US Army Corps of Engineers, the US Navy and NOAA. He lives in Bay St. Louis with his wife Angela.
John Stange
LLSS Operator
Scientific Applications International Corporation
Paul Trakimas
LLSS Operator
Scientific Applications International Corporation
Paul is a Field Engineer with SAIC responsible for maintaining and repairing commercial diving gear, and keeping proficient with commercial diving skills. Paul will provide shipboard operation support, including operation and maintenance of deck equipment and handling systems, engine room and deck department watch standing, fire fighting and damage control, and small boat maintenance and repair.
Robert Wilson
LLSS Operator
Scientific Applications International Corporation
