GMRI Scientist Awarded Prestigious CINAR Fellowship

In early April, the NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center and the Cooperative Institute for the North Atlantic Region (CINAR) named GMRI Senior Research Scientist Dr. Kathy Mills as one of four CINAR Fellows.

Dr. Kathy Mills leads the Integrated Systems Ecology lab here at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute. Her lab distills complex ocean data to understand how oceanographic, biological, socio-economic, and institutional components impact ecosystems, fisheries, and coastal communities in a warming world.

The goal of this two-year CINAR fellowship program is to support the training and education of the next generation of stock assessment scientists, ecosystem scientists, and economists.

During her CINAR fellowship, she will collaborate with Dr. Scott Large of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center to investigate functional impacts of climate change on the Northeast Shelf marine ecosystem. This research will adopt a trait-based approach to understand how different types of species are responding to ocean warming and marine heatwaves, and how these responses are influencing fish community characteristics and dynamics. Results will contribute to State of the Ecosystem reports and ecosystem-based fisheries management planning efforts in the region.

Dr. Lisa Kerr, Associate Professor at UMaine School of Marine Sciences located at GMRI and leading the Quantitative Fisheries Research lab, is one of the other four awardees of this competitive fellowship. Dr. Kerr collaborates with Dr. Mills to examine climate-mediated changes in fisheries and ecosystems in the Gulf of Maine.