Donald F. Boesch
President
Don Boesch is a Professor of Marine Science and President of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES). The Center is one of two research and service institutions in the 13-institution University System of Maryland . It conducts comprehensive research, trains graduate students, contributes to public education, and advises public agencies and others on environmental and natural resource management from its three laboratories distributed across the state: Appalachian Laboratory, Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, and Horn Point Laboratory. From June 2002 through October 2003, Dr. Boesch also served as Interim Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs of the University System of Maryland. In February 2008, Dr. Boesch was given the additional responsibility of Vice Chancellor for Environmental Sustainability to lead the University System's Environmental Sustainability Initiative.
A native of New Orleans, Don Boesch received his B.S. from Tulane University and Ph.D. from the College of William & Mary. He was a Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Queensland and subsequently served on the faculty of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. In 1980 he became the first Executive Director of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium (LUMCON), where he was also a Professor of Marine Science at Louisiana State University. He assumed his present position in Maryland in 1990.
Dr. Boesch is a biological oceanographer who has conducted research in coastal and continental shelf environments along the Atlantic Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico, eastern Australia and the East China Sea. He has published two books and more than 85 papers on marine benthos, estuaries, wetlands, continental shelves, oil pollution, nutrient over-enrichment, environmental assessment and monitoring and science policy. Presently his research focuses on the use of science in ecosystem management.
Don Boesch is active in extending knowledge to environmental and resource management at regional, national and international levels. He has served as science advisor to many state and federal agencies and regional, national and international programs. He has chaired numerous of committees and scientific assessment teams that have produced reports on a wide variety of coastal environmental and climate change issues. |
