Lophelia II 2008 Explorers
John Broadwater
Chief Archaeologist
Office of National Marine Sanctuaries
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
John Broadwater is chief archaeologist of the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). From 2005 to 2007, Broadwater was program manager for NOAA’s Maritime Heritage Program. He was manager of the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary from 1992 to 2005, during which time he directed seven major expeditions to the remains of the Civil War ironclad USS Monitor, which lies at a depth of 235 ft, 16 miles off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. From 1978 to 1990, as Virginia's first State Underwater Archaeologist, he directed a study of shipwrecks from the 1781 Battle of Yorktown. He has participated in numerous national and international underwater archaeological expeditions, including deep-water archaeology expeditions in the Black Sea and North Atlantic. In September of 2001, he descended in the Mir 2 submersible to the wreck of the RMS Titanic. He has served on numerous advisory boards, and is a Fellow in The Explorers Club. He has published a variety of technical and popular articles and contributed to numerous archaeological books and encyclopedias. He has a master’s degree in American studies from the College of William and Mary, and a doctorate in maritime studies from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland.
Andrew Bruening received his PhD from the University of South Carolina (USC), with his dissertation on the geology and paleoecology of south Florida. He is the lead science teacher at Metro Early College High School, a STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) high school affiliated with Ohio State University and the Battelle Memorial Institute. During the past 10 years, Bruening's teaching experience has included high school physics and earth science classes. He returned to school for his PhD in 2001. As a doctoral student at USC, he taught laboratory courses and several undergraduate courses. Bruening involves students in research as much as possible, and works to incorporate his own research experiences into the classroom.
Walter Cho
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Walter Cho recently received his doctorate in biological oceanography from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program. His research interests include the population genetics and ecology of deep-sea organisms, with a particular interest in seamount and coral-associated fauna.
Robert Church
Chief Scientist — Lophelia II 2008/Leg 1
Senior Marine Archaeologist
C & C Technologies, Inc.,
Lafayette, Louisiana
Robert Church has over 15 years experience in underwater archaeology and historical research. For the past 10 years, he has served as a marine archaeologist with C & C Technologies, Inc. (C & C) — an international hydrographic survey company headquartered in Lafayette, Louisiana. Church routinely works with deep-ocean remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), as well as conventional marine geophysical equipment. While at C & C, he has led field investigations on numerous deep-water shipwreck sites in the Gulf of Mexico, including U-166, Robert E. Lee, Gulfpenn, the Green Lantern wreck, and the Viosca Knoll wreck. He was chief scientist and project manager for the Deep Wrecks I Study (MMS 2007-015), which is one of the most comprehensive biological and archaeological studies of deep-water shipwrecks to date and currently the deepest archaeological project in the Gulf of Mexico.
Church holds a master's degree in maritime history and nautical archaeology from East Carolina University and a bachelor of arts degree in history with a minor in biology from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. For his work on various deep-water shipwreck projects, he received the Corporate Leadership Award (CORLA) from the U.S. Department of the Interior, Mineral Management Service (2002), the Cooperative Conservation Award from the Department of the Interior (2005), and the Excellence in Partnering Award from the National Oceanographic Partnership Program (2007).
Geoff Cook
Operations Manager
SeaView Systems, Inc.
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Geoff Cook moved from Sydney, Australia, to Ann Arbor, Michigan, in April 2008 to take up the position of operations manager for SeaView Systems, Inc. For the previous 15 years, he was the owner/operator of an electrical contracting company and provided business management consulting and remotely operated vehicle technical support to SeaView Systems.
Erik Cordes
Chief Scientist — Lophelia II
Assistant Professor
Temple University
Erik Cordes is an ecologist studying cold-seep and coral communities in the Gulf of Mexico. On this project, his group is working on the physiological tolerances of Lophelia pertusa and the genetic connectivity among gorgonian populations. He received his master’s degree from Moss Landing Marine Labs, working on the age and growth of cold-water corals, and his doctorate from Penn State, where he studied the tubeworms of the upper slope of the Gulf of Mexico. As a post-doc at Harvard, he worked on the ecology of the deep-sea coral Lophelia pertusa and their associated communities and the microbial ecology of Juan de Fuca Ridge hydrothermal vent chimneys.
Emily Crum
Web Coordinator
NOAA's National Ocean Service
Emily Crum is a writer/editor leading the Communications Branch of the Communications and Education Division of NOAA's National Ocean Service (NOS). She serves as the managing editor of the NOS Web site, manages the production of NOS-wide publications, and works with NOS Program Offices in the development of communication materials, including key messages, strategic plans, technical reports, outreach documents, and Web sites. Ms. Crum holds a bachelor's degree in environmental geology as well as master's degrees in both geological sciences and technical and scientific communication.
Peter Etnoyer is a doctoral fellow at Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi. He studies deep-sea corals, particularly Gorgonacea — a group that includes sea fans and sea whips that thrive down to 5,600 m depth.
Keene Haywood, PhD
University of Texas at Austin
Keene Haywood holds a PhD in geography from the University of Texas at Austin, an MFA in science and natural history filmmaking from Montana State University, an MA in marine affairs from the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (RSMAS), and a BA in anthropology also from the University of Miami. His masters and undergraduate degrees involved work in underwater archaeology. This background led to work with remotely operated vehicles and side scan sonar to document deep-water wrecks off Florida's Atlantic coast. Dr. Haywood has also worked on several marine conservation projects related to coral reef preservation in Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and the Florida Keys. Additionally, he has worked on various still and video/film projects, mostly within the marine realm. He also has worked as a multimedia producer in Austin, Texas, developing interactive media for educational purposes. He has held staff positions with The Nature Conservancy and most recently for the National Geographic Society. His current post is with the University of Texas at Austin's Division of Instructional Innovation and Assessment, where he leads new media research and development into emerging technologies for applications in research and teaching.
Dr. Jack Irion is supervisor of the Social Science Unit in the Mineral Management Service (MMS) Office of Leasing and Environment in the Gulf of Mexico Region. He has over 34 years experience in underwater archaeology and has participated in or directed archaeological expeditions in England, Mexico, Belize, Turkey, Italy, Puerto Rico, and throughout the United States. Prior to joining MMS in 1995, Irion served as a private consulting marine archaeologist to both industry and government agencies. His work has resulted in the discovery and documentation of numerous historic sites and shipwrecks. Since joining the MMS, he has directed the Seafloor Monitoring Team, a group of MMS diver/scientists, in the documentation of several historic shipwrecks on the outer continental shelf. These have included the Civil War gunboat USS Hatteras and the 19th-century coastal steamers New York and Josephine, the latter of which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2000. Most recently, Irion has planned and participated in deep-water archaeological investigations of vessel casualties of World War II, as well as those of several 19th-century shipwrecks in the Gulf of Mexico.
Morgan Kilgour is a doctoral fellow in the Biodiversity and Conservation Laboratory at Harte Research Institute under Dr. Tom Shirley at Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi. Her dissertation research focuses on the biology and ecology of galatheoid crabs in the Gulf of Mexico. Her research interests include marine ecology, deep-sea biology, and benthic ecology.
Kaitlin Kovacs recently received her bachelor's degree in biology with a minor in Greek studies from the University of Florida. She works as a biologist for the U.S. Geological Survey under Dr. Amanda Demopoulos, a benthic ecologist. The benthos lab focuses most of its work on isotope analysis and trophodynamics of benthic communities. Kovacs acts as lab manager and assists with laboratory processing of samples and field sampling. Projects have included studying the connectivity of mangroves, seagrass beds, and coral reef habitats in the U.S. Virgin Islands, trophodynamics and community structure of chemosynthetic seeps in the Gulf of Mexico, and the benthic ecology and trophodynamics of deep-sea coral in the Gulf of Mexico. Kovacs plans to enter graduate school soon.
Anne Corscadden Knox's research interests include the archaeology of shipwrecks, maritime cultural landscapes, and submerged cultural resources. She has international experience in both marine and terrestrial environments, involving GIS, side scan technology, and sub-bottom profilers. Knox has a Bsc honours in archaeology from Queens University, Belfast, and a Msc in maritime archaeology from the University of Ulster. She is a fully qualified commercial diver, having obtained her HSE Part 1 (surface supplied, wet bell, diver rescue) from Fort William, Scotland. Knox is currently a research associate and program co-coordinator for the PAST Foundation.
Michael Kullman received an MS in geography from Texas A&M University in 1996 and began working for TDI-Brooks International in 1997. He currently serves as a GIS specialist during offshore hazard and seismic survey projects aboard the TDI-Brooks research vessel J.W. Powell.
Stephanie Lessard-Pilon is working toward her PhD at Penn State University, having completing her BS in biology at Cornell University in 2005. She is examining the role of deep-water corals as a habitat source, as well as investigating temporal change at deep cold-seep invertebrate communities using photomosaics in the Gulf of Mexico. She is also interested in the ecology of sea urchins and other benthic communities.
Jay Lunden
Graduate Student
Temple University
Jay Lunden is a second year grad student pursuing his MS. Having completed his BS in May 2007 at Temple University, Lunden is just getting started in marine research and will be studying corals, namely Lophelia pertusa, and their tolerances of certain physical parameters, including temperature, dissolved oxygen, and pH. He hopes to pursue a PhD and teach at the college level in the future.
Maria Pia Miglietta is interested in the interactions between evolution and ecology in marine organisms. She obtained here bachelor and master's degrees in biology and ecology at the University of Lecce, Italy, where she worked on biodiversity surveys and hydrozoan ecology and taxonomy in the Mediterranean Sea. During her doctoral studies at Duke University, Miglietta's work ranged from life cycle evolution in marine invertebrates to evolution of calcium carbonate in Cnidaria and multi-gene phylogenetic reconstructions and systematics. Later, as a Marine Science Network Postdoctoral Fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, she worked on life cycle evolution and ecology of Hydrozoa across the Isthmus of Panama, hydromedusa blooms and upwelling events, and invasive species. She currently works in the Deep Sea Lab, under Dr. C. Fisher, at Penn State.
Matthew Porter is a senior majoring in biology at The Pennsylvania State University. He has previously worked on a project that used GIS software to manipulate high-resolution photomosaics from seep sites in the Gulf of Mexico to help determine community structure. Currently, he is helping to create and establish aquaria to maintain deep-sea coral, and applying to graduate schools.
Andrea M. Quattrini
Research Associate
University of North Carolina - Wilmington
Andrea M. Quattrini is a research associate at the University of North Carolina - Wilmington (UNCW), Center for Marine Science. She has worked in Dr. Steve W. Ross’ lab since 2002 and has participated in over a dozen offshore cruises off the southeastern United States. Quattrini has worked on numerous projects investigating open ocean, shelf-edge, and deep coral ecosystems. Her research interests include the diversity, distribution, and connectivity of deep-sea corals and associated fauna. She also has interests in taxonomy, ecology, and life history strategies of marine fishes, particularly those that live in shallow and deep reef habitats. She holds a BS in biology from Millersville University and an MS in marine biology from UNCW. In January 2009, Quattrini will begin the PhD program at Temple University, where she will continue deep-sea coral investigations under the direction of Dr. Erik Cordes.
Arunima Sen is just starting her PhD at Penn State University. She received her BA from Earlham College in Indiana, where she majored in biology. In true liberal arts fashion, she has worked on a number of completely unrelated projects, ranging from old growth forest ecology to obligate army-ant-following bird behavior and population dynamics of coastal gastropods. She plans to focus her graduate work on deep-sea chemosynthetic communities. She hopes that an advanced degree will not deflect from her interest in grassroots conservation and environmental policy.
William (Bill) Shedd graduated from the University of Rochester in 1973 with a BA in geology. As part of his coursework there, he attended the 1972 fall semester at the West Indies Lab, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands and worked for the Smithsonian Institution under Dr. Walter Adey on a Holocene carbonate reef research project. He worked for Western Geophysical on a marine crew in the Gulf of Mexico in 1974 until he began his MS in geology at Louisiana State University (LSU). After completing his master's degree, he worked for Shell Oil Co. from 1977 to 1981 and several independent oil companies as a geoscientist until becoming a co-founder of Independent Energy Corp. in 1989. From 1994 to 1997, he consulted for oil companies in exploration, development, log analysis, geophysical interpretation, and well site analysis.
In 1997, he joined the Minerals Management Service (MMS) as a geophysicist in the Resource Evaluation Division, Geological and Geophysical Section, evaluating lease blocks after lease sales. While doing this work, he recognized that sea-floor amplitude response on industry three-dimensional seismic data is an effective tool in locating oil and gas seeps, subsurface migration conduits, natural gas hydrates, and chemosynthetic communities. He then joined the MMS Resource Studies Section and became active in the submersible dive program contracted through LSU to Dr. Harry Roberts to groundtruth the seismic mapping of the sea-floor amplitude anomalies. He is currently also active in the methane hydrate assessment in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic basins.
Jeff Snyder
Jeff Snyder owns of SeaVision Marine Services, LLC, a small Rhode Island-based business that provides hydrographic survey and remotely operated vehicle (ROV) services for both inshore and offshore clients. A former Navy Special Operations Officer with a BS in geology from Duke University and an MS in geosystems from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Snyder has more than 12 years of experience conducting operations to support marine search, survey, and underwater investigation projects. He is a USCG-licensed captain and an ACSM-certified hydrographer. Snyder is the senior project manager for ROV operations that support the three legs of this NOAA research cruise.
Doug Weaver
Doug Weaver is a marine biologist and geographic information
specialist with Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi, and a doctoral
student in the department of physical and life sciences. His research
interests include fisheries ecosystem function and reef fish community
ecology, sea-floor mapping, and habitat characterization. He has logged
over 1,000 scuba dives in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, and
has participated in over 70 research cruises, conducting remotely operated
vehicle, submersible, and multibeam mapping surveys in the Gulf
of Mexico and Florida Keys.
Robert F. Westrick
Maritime Archaeologist
C & C Technologies, Inc.
Robert Westrick holds a master’s degree in maritime history and nautical archaeology from East Carolina University. A registered professional archaeologist, Westrick has worked on numerous shipwreck projects over the past decade, ranging from remote sensing surveys to complete excavation and mapping investigations. In 1997, he secured the necessary permits from the U.S. Navy, obtained funding from the Institute for International Maritime Research, and completed the first archaeological survey of the USS Peterhoff, a Civil War steamship lost off the coast of North Carolina. In addition to his work on various Civil War shipwrecks in North Carolina and Virginia, Westrick has worked on projects ranging from 17th-century Spanish merchant ships off Bermuda to 19th-century schooners in Lake Erie. He recently participated in a project to excavate Blackbeard’s flagship, Queen Anne’s Revenge, lost off the coast of North Carolina in 1718. Westrick joined C & C Technologies in 2008 as a marine archaeologist.
Leslie Wickes
Research Technician
Temple University
Leslie Wickes recently graduated from Penn State University with a BS in biology. While earning her degree, she worked in the Fisher Laboratory using geographic information systems (GIS) and chemical data to study community composition on deep-sea hydrothermal vent chimneys. Since graduating she has joined the Cordes lab at Temple University, and she will work on this cruise to maintain live coral collections both on the ship and upon returning to the lab. As this will be her first time out at sea, she will be interested in all aspects of the exploration and will assist in various tasks and research.
