SMAST Prof. Emeritus Brian Rothschild has been invited to deliver the summary address at the Johan Hjort Symposium on Recruitment Dynamics and Stock Variability next week in Bergen, Norway.
Hjort is widely considered to be the father of fisheries science. The occasion for the symposium is the 100th anniversary of the publication of Hjort’s seminal book, Fluctuations in the Great Fisheries of Northern Europe.
According to the symposium organizers, “The importance of [Hjort’s] volume cannot be overstated, particularly Hjort’s new conceptual ideas about the formation of strong year classes based on age determination from fish scales.”
Dr. Rothschild is Professor Emeritus and former Dean of the School for Marine Science and Technology. He has edited five books and is the author of 100+ research papers.
Dr. Rothschild has worked in several capacities for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and has consulted for the United Nations and several national governments on various aspects of oceanography and fishery management. He has served on numerous national and international committees and working groups, and has led international scientific programs.
Dr. Rothschild is currently President and CEO of the Center for Sustainable Fisheries (CSF), a science-based, non-profit organization “devoted to the conservation of our fisheries resources and the economic development of our fishing communities.”
New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell (left) opened the 2012 Symposium of the American Institute of Fishery Research Biologists this week in New Bedford. SMAST faculty and students joined top fisheries biologists from the USA and Canada discussing and presenting research on the meeting theme, “The Relative Importance of Fishing and the Environment in the Regulation of Fish Population Abundance.” The three-day symposium was hosted by the SMAST Department of Fisheries Oceanography, which co-sponsored the event with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, the Southern New England Chapter of the American Fisheries Society, the Ocean Trust, the (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Service, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, and the New Bedford Whaling Museum. See program and abstracts 
Four SMAST graduate students presented scientific results at the 138th Annual Meeting of the American Fisheries Society (AFS) in Ottawa last week. Talia Bigelow, Daniel Goethel, Jon Loehrke, and Jessica Melgey, along with SMAST post-doctoral researcher Anthony Wood, all made presentations in the AFS Symposium on “Tagging and its use in stock assessments.” In addition, Bigelow received an American Institute of Fishery Research Biologists (AIFRB) Research Assistance Award to support her participation in the meeting. Her abstract will be published in BRIEFS, the AIFRB newsletter. Commented SMAST Prof. Steve Cadrin, who advises the students, “I think it’s particularly notable for students to make such a substantial contribution to an international symposium.”
SMAST Research Associate and Ph.D. student Brad Harris was an invited speaker at the NOAA National Symposium on Shellfish and the Environment in Warwick, Rhode Island, last week. Harris gave a presentation entitled “Assessing Impacts of Shellfish Harvest: Lessons Learned,” co-authored by SMAST Professor Kevin Stokesbury. The purpose of the symposium was to facilitate public policy and resource management decisions for shellfish culture in the United States. The two-day symposium featured 18 invited speakers from around the U.S., Canada and Finland, including U.S. Senator Jack Reed (D-RI), who told the gathering of Rhode Island’s proactive approach to developing sustainable aquaculture while protecting the marine environment.