Mantua Seminar: “Climate and Paralytic Shellfish Toxins in Puget Sound Shellfish"

Start Date/Time: Tuesday, March 11, 2008, 2:30 PM
Location: FSH 108

Oceans and Human Health Joint NOAA/UW Winter Quarter Seminar Series

“Climate and Paralytic Shellfish Toxins in Puget Sound Shellfish"
Nathan Mantua, Ph.D.

Associate Professor/University of Washington, School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences and Research Scientist/NOAA-UW Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Oceans

BIO:

Dr. Mantua's research and teaching interests revolve around links between climate dynamics and integrating natural sciences with social sciences in order to address human-environmental problems. As a member of the UW's Climate Impacts Group (CIG) he has collaborated with graduate students and faculty from a diverse suite of policy and environmental science programs. Dr. Mantua's research is aimed at developing an improved understanding of climate dynamics across the continuum from local weather extremes to hemispheric scale interdecadal climate variations. Recently, most of his climate research has been pursued with diagnostic studies of historical records, and using natural climate proxies in paleoclimate reconstructions. Currently, Dr. Mantua is working with simple conceptual models to test a variety of theories about the possible links between tropical and extratropical interdecadal climate variations in the Pacific.

Beyond the boundaries of the university Dr. Mantua participates in numerous outreach and education activities. These activities include frequent media contacts, stakeholder workshops and educational forums, and briefing various resource management staffers from local, state, federal and tribal agencies. The goal of his outreach efforts is to communicate the latest science in climate diagnostics and prediction, as well as extending knowledge of the climate system to provide a broader perspective on natural variations in highly valued water, fishery and forest resources.

Dr. Mantua received a BS from the University of California at Davis in 1988, and a PhD from the UW's Department of Atmospheric Science in 1994. He was a postdoctoral Fellow at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 1994-95, and joined the UW's Climate Impacts Group in the fall of 1995. In April 2000 he received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers for his climate impacts research and public outreach activities. Dr. Mantua has served on the US Global Oceans Ecosystems Dynamics (US GLOBEC) scientific steering committee, the National Research Council panel on the Alaska Groundfish Fishery and Stellar Sea Lions, and on the North Pacific Marine Science (PICES) panel on Fisheries and Ecosystem Response to Recent Regime Shifts.
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For more information about this seminar or to arrange a meeting with the speakers, contact Micaela Parker at micaela@u.washington.edu.