The Federation is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2007 ERF awardes.

Odum Award for Lifetime Achievement

Grace S. Brush
Professor
Whiting School of Engineering
Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland

A primary criterion for this award is evidence of a sustained record of important contributions to our understanding of estuaries. During her long (almost 50 years) and productive career, Grace Brush has conducted an impressive array of local, regional, national and international research and educational activities, and there does not seem to be any slackening of her pace. Since her first publication in 1952, she has published many scientific papers during her career; her most recent work probes the effects of historical land use on tree growth.

Grace was a pioneer in estuarine paleoecology and truly expanded our thinking about past estuarine function and legacy effects on today’s estuarine ecosystems. The committee notes the following statements included in the nomination package for Grace Brush: “she is one of the international superstars of estuarine science,” and she has developed “a tremendous cumulative body of work” on historical changes to estuaries and the reasons why these happened.

Finally, Grace has made important contributions to estuarine research via her many decades of active support and leadership for programs such as the NSF-funded LTERs focusing on estuarine ecosystems, for ERF and AERS, for graduate education, and for advancing the roles and opportunities for women in science. Please extend congratulations to Grace for her important contributions to estuarine science.

William A. Niering Award for Outstanding Educator

Alejandro Yáñez-Arancibia
Senior Scientist and Professor of Coastal Management
University Anahuax of Xalapa, Mexico

For 30 years, Alex Yáñez has been teaching and conducting research in both academic and professional positions in Brazil, Costa Rica, the U.S., and most extensively in Mexico. Dr. Yáñez has taught thousands of students in fisheries, tropical ecology and coastal management courses and has been advisor to over 60 students at undergraduate honors, masters and doctoral levels. He is fondly known by his past students for his human qualities, and one student nominator pictured him in a boat, with a great smile and looking for the fishes in the mangroves. Along with the fishing vigor is academic rigor: many of his students have gone on to assume professional positions as directors, heads, and managers of estuarine and coastal sciences labs throughout Latin America.

Alex Yáñez has published over 200 scientific papers and 15 books, including textbooks and symposium volumes that are educational source materials for estuarine and coastal science students and professionals internationally. His influence on the science and management of the tropical coastal zone extends from academia to governments and NGOs. For example, from 1990 until 1997, Dr. Yáñez was Head of the EPOMEX program (Center of Ecology, Fisheries and Oceanography of the Gulf of Mexico) at the University of Campeche, where the strong interaction between academic institutions and public agencies was described by one of his colleagues as “magical.” Dr. Yáñez-Arancibia has been a major voice within the Estuarine Research Federation membership to champion the science and proper management of tropical coastal regions around the world. As an educator, Dr. Yáñez is most deserving of the prestigious William A. Niering Award.

Donald W. Pritchard Award forEstuaries and Coasts Geophysics Paper

Lisa V. Lucas
Research Engineer
U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, CA
Accepting for:
L.V. Lucas, D.M. Sereno, J.R. Burau, T.S. Schraga,
C.B. Lopez, M.T. Stacey, K.V. Parchevsky, and V.P. Parchevsky

The paper Intradaily variability of water quality in a shallow tidal lagoon: mechanisms and implications by L.V. Lucas, D.M. Sereno, J.R. Burau, T.S. Schraga, C.B. Lopez, M.T. Stacey, K.V. Parchevsky, and V.P. Parchevsky (2006. Estuaries and Coasts 29(5): 711-730) presents an object lesson for dealing with the challenges of measuring and analyzing the complexities of coastal ecosystems. Through an innovative and creative approach to the analysis of a mix of signals fluctuating over a broad range of frequencies in a natural system, the authors showed that structure and order could be extracted, despite these complexities and nonlinearities.

Lucas et al. instrumented a shallow, multiple-input lagoon in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta system with both physical and biological sensors recording on a 10-minute cycle. They appealed to the body of knowledge on high-frequency physical variability to perform a careful scaling of relevant variables, ultimately producing a satisfying anatomy of the physical and biological signals revealing the component mechanisms that make up the observed periodicities.

Results from this study are relevant far beyond the type of ecosystem addressed and beyond the balance of mechanisms particular to this water body. The authors illustrate a method for avoiding misleading conclusions caused by sampling aliasing, but more importantly, they provide insight into ecosystem processes on both ends of the variability spectrum. Such insight is essential to the monitoring, understanding, and ultimately, the prediction of ecosystem function.

Cronin Award for Early Career Achievement

Elizabeth W. North
Assistant Professor
University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science
Horn Point Laboratory, Cambridge, MD

Dr. North received her PhD from the University of Maryland in 2001, where she was advised by Dr. Ed Houde (UMCES-Chesapeake Biological Laboratory). Elizabeth’s dissertation, “Transport and Retention of Fish Early-Life Stages in Chesapeake Bay: Mechanisms and Implications for Recruitment,” launched her on a career path that critically examines ecological processes dependent on biological-physical interactions in estuaries and coastal seas.

While in her postdoctoral appointment with Dr. Raleigh Hood at the UMCES Horn Point Laboratory, Elizabeth rapidly became proficient in numerical modeling of bio-physical processes. In 2004, Elizabeth was appointed as a tenure-track Assistant Professor at UMCES-HPL. Elizabeth’s research emphasizes modeling and field experiments to explain distributions and spatial patterns of meroplankton and ichthyoplankton (crabs, oysters, fish). Development and application of coupled, bio-physical models are prominent elements in her approach. Elizabeth’s expertise is wide-reaching. She is a global expert on features and processes such as estuary turbidity maxima. Although only six years from her PhD, results, recommendations and advice emanating from Elizabeth’s research have had major influences on understanding anadromous fish recruitments and on planning for oyster restoration in Chesapeake Bay.

Elizabeth has authored or co-authored 11 papers since her PhD, including four in Estuaries and Coasts. She has a strong international presence in the oceanography community and is highly regarded for her leadership and contributions to ICES, and involvement in science planning and advisory activities (e.g., GLOBEC Steering Committee). Elizabeth has demonstrated excellence in research, teaching, graduate student mentorship, and applications of science to management needs. She exemplifies the qualities that distinguish recipients of the Cronin Award.

Distinguished Service Awards

Linda C. Schaffner
Professor
The College of William and Mary
Virginia Institute of Marine Science
Gloucester, Virginia

For her myriad contributions to advance the Federation and its outreach as:

Member at Large 1997-1999, Secretary 1999 – 2001,
Presidential Succession 2001-2007

Stephen T. Threlkeld
Professor
Department of Biology
University of Mississippi, University, Mississippi

For his contributions to improving the Federation's journal as:

Managing Editor of Estuaries, 1998-2006 and
Estuaries and Coasts, 2006 - 2007