GCAN would like to welcome three new steering committee members: Dr. Sharon Herzka, Siobhan Kassem-Courtney and Dr. De’Marcus Robinson. Steering Committee members help guide GCAN as it works with scientists, resource managers, stakeholders and educators to facilitate, synthesize and communicate the state of coastal and ocean acidification science in the Gulf of Mexico region.
Herzka, Associate Professor, Marine Science Institute at the University of Texas at Austin, studies fish ecology, larval transport and recruitment, isotope ecology and Gulf of Mexico oceanography. She earned her Ph.D. in marine science from The University of Texas at Austin. Herzka’s research has focused on drivers of larval fish community structure and dispersal, inferring nutrient sources using bulk and compound-specific stable isotope ratios as tracers. Her research has contributed to the understanding of the physical and biological processes that underlie larval fish abundance and distribution, their connectivity through physical transport processes, Gulf-wide nitrogen sources and the relationship between secondary production and oceanographic features such as mesoscale eddies, fronts, and convergent currents.