David Throne: President
Email:[email protected]
Kimberly Dibble: Past President
Kim has a unique educational background in both applied science and public policy, with a MA in Marine Affairs (2004) and a PhD in Biological and Environmental Science (2012), both from the University of Rhode Island. Her first career position was with the NOAA Fisheries Office of Habitat Conservation, where she supported regulatory efforts to promote habitat protection and restoration of coastal habitats and efforts to ensure successful diadromous fish passage around hydropower dams. Her doctoral studies were focused on the effects of tidal restrictions and plant invasions on energy flow through salt marsh food webs including how marsh health influences the physiological condition of fish. She now works as a Fishery Biologist for the USGS Southwest Biological Science Center, Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center in Flagstaff, AZ, where she started as a postdoctoral fellow in 2013. Her current research program investigates how dam management practices, specifically their impact on flow and water temperature, influence introduced salmonid population dynamics in regulated rivers across the western United States. She also uses biochemical indicators to quantify the influence of anthropogenic and natural stressors on fish physiology, life history patterns, and food webs. She has published in numerous scientific journals, served on proposal review panels, acquired funding from a variety of entities, given scientific presentations to broad audiences, and mentored undergraduate students and research technicians. When she is not working, Kim enjoys hiking, biking, and skiing with her husband Nathan, children Owen and Audrey, and Labrador retriever Gunner.
Gary E. Whelan: President-Elect
Email: [email protected]
Gary has a B.S. in fisheries management from the University of Wyoming and a M.S. in fisheries management from the University of Missouri. He has worked as a fisheries biologist for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources for 35+ years and prior to that worked as a research biologist for Michigan State University for 4.7 years. Currently, he is a Program Manager for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources – Fisheries Division, responsible for all operational aspects of the Fisheries Research Section. His other staff duties include fish health program oversight, assisting with habitat management issues including fish passage challenges, and handling emergency response issues for Fisheries Division. In addition to his state duties, he has been involved with the National Fish Habitat Partnership for the last 18 years, initially one of the Core Team that wrote the Plan and for the last 17 years, as the Co-Chair of the Board’s Science and Data Committee directly responsible for the National Fish Habitat Assessment. He is a life member and Fellow of the American Fisheries Society (AFS). He has served in numerous leadership roles for AFS, currently 2nd Vice President, am heavily involved in multiple Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (AFWA) committees on national fisheries issues and was the second President of the Instream Flow Council. He has authored or coauthored 53 peer-reviewed publications with 6 in progress or review at this time. While his educational training is as a stream ecologist, he has been blessed with a wonderfully diverse career that has ranged from studying 5 micron fish parasites and many other fish pathogens to understanding stream and watershed functioning to examining the consequences of environmental history on aquatic resources to analyzing hydropower impacts statewide to examining fish habitat on a national scale to managing complex fisheries research and fish production systems for the State of Michigan. In his spare time, Gary enjoys fishing, hunting, hiking, and nature exploring with his wife Karen and his grown children, Greg and Kelli.
Secretary/Treasurer: Michael Homer Jr.
Awards Committee Chair: Kimberly Dibble
Social Media Coordinator: Lauren Flynn
Email: [email protected]
Lauren is an MSc student at New Mexico State University and a US Fish and Wildlife Service Directorate Resource Fellow. Her thesis research investigates the impacts of Brown Trout on Rio Grande Cutthroat Trout using a production framework.
