Ms. Daphne Derven (Emeril Lagasse Foundation)
Ms. Derven is the Director of Special Projects at the Emeril Lagasse Foundation. A former archeologist, Ms. Derven was the Founding Director of Programs and Development at the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in Westchester County, NY, a non-profit organization devoted to sustainable agriculture. She served as the Founding Curator of Food and Director for Public Programs at Copia in Napa Valley, CA from 1997-2003, and she was the Program Director for Northwest Youth Corps before moving to New Orleans in 2009. Since moving to the city, Ms. Derven has worked with many food organizations, including serving as the Executive Director of the New Orleans Food and Farm Network, joining the Edible Schoolyard Task Force, and she sat on the board of the Southern Food and Beverage Museum. She now works with Emeril Lagasse's organization to support educational, skill-building programs in the culinary arts. Please visit http://www.emeril.org/ for further information.
Duane Gill, Ph.D. (Professor and Head of Sociology, Oklahoma State University)
Dr. Gill received his Ph.D. in Sociology from Texas A&M University, College Station and his research interests include: Environmental Sociology, Sociology of Disasters, Community, Rural Sociology, Social Impact Assessment, Theory, Qualitative Methods, Natural Resources, Applied Sociology, and Sport and Leisure.
Dr. Gill is part of a research team that has been investigating human impacts of the 1989 Exxon Valdez Oil Spill in Alaska through a series of longitudinal studies. He was also part of a research team that conducted a study of community impacts of the 2004 Selendang Ayu shipwreck and oil spill in the Aleutian Islands. More recently, he was part of a research team investigating how the 2007 Cosco Busan oil spill in San Francisco Bay affected resource user groups in the area. These research activities seek to understand community preparedness for, response to, and recovery from disasters. Please visit: Duane Gill for further information.
Dr. Robert Haddad, Ph.D. (Chief of the Assessment & Restoration Division for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
Dr. Haddad earned his Ph.D. in Chemical Oceanography at UNC, Chapel Hill with a focus on sedimentary organic geochemistry. Following post-doctoral fellowships at NASA and at Stanford University, he joined Unocal's Petroleum Geochemistry Research Group and provided in-house company-wide consultation on environmental liability issues. While at Unocal, he also provided expert witness support in Forensic Geochemistry and technical leadership for NRDA in Unocal's worldwide emergency response organization. After leaving Unocal, he was responsible for strategic and technical leadership on OPA NRDA cases as West Coast Regional Risk Manager for ENTRIX, Inc. and then as a Vice President for ARCADIS-JSA. Prior to joining NOAA, Dr. Haddad was President and Principal Scientist for Applied Geochemical Strategies, Inc. In this role, he provided strategic and technical liability consulting for clients (OPA and CERCLA NRDA and non-NRDA issues) and expert witness testimony in various aspects of forensic geochemistry. He is currently working for the NOAA as the Chief of the Assessment & Restoration Division. In this position, he also co-leads NOAA's Damage Assessment Remediation & Restoration Program (DARRP). Please visit: http://response.restoration.noaa.gov/ for further information.
Dr. Uta Passow, Ph.D. (Research Professor of Oceanography, Marine Science Institute UCSB and member of the Deepwater Horizon rapid response team)
Dr. Passow received her Ph.D. in Oceanography from the University of Kiel, Germany Biology. She is currently a Research Professor of Oceanography at the Marine Science Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research interests focuses on the functioning of the biological pump and marine carbon cycling, specifically carbon flux, in a changing world: her lab tries to gain a mechanistic understanding of processes which determine the flux of carbon in marine systems, now and in the future. As the structure of pelagic ecosystems and their functioning is changing so will the efficiency of the biological pump. They study the factors and processes driving marine carbon cycling, both in the surface ocean (production, utilization, aggregation of carbon) and in the twilight zone, where loss of sinking particles due to dissolution, degradation or grazing is high. Currently the lab is focusing on the impact of ocean acidification on carbon cycling and aggregation and on the consequences of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010, for marine snow and sedimentation. Please visit Uta Passow for further information.
Dr. Ivor van Heerden (Former Director of the Center for the Study of Public Health Impacts of Hurricanes)
A native of South Africa, Dr. van Heerden is the former Director of the Center for the Study of Public Health Impacts of Hurricanes, a Louisiana Board of Regents Health Excellence Fund Center. He received his undergraduate degree in geology from the University of Natal in South Africa, and a masters and doctorate in Marine Sciences from Louisiana State University (LSU). Dr. van Heerden created a hurricane modeling program at LSU. For the last decade he has been one of the most persistent voices warning of the inevitable effects of a major hurricane on the Louisiana coast. He is currently the lead principal investigator on a research team studying the public health impacts of major hurricanes and flooding in New Orleans, where his primary research focus is on storm-surge effects and natural hazards preparation and response. Other continuing research areas include coastal and river basin processes and sedimentation, delta building strategies, fault processes and environmental restoration and management.