Explorers on Northwestern Hawaiian Islands
Leg 1—Northampton Seamounts
Frank Parrish
Ray Boland
Sean Corson
Charles Holloway
Christopher Kelley
Terry Kerby
Robert Moffitt
Bruce Mundy
Rachel Shackelford
Leg 2—Northwestern Hawaiian Islands
John R. Smith
LTJG Ben Evans
Joyce Miller
LTJG Jeremy Weirich
Leg 1—Northampton Seamounts
Frank Parrish
Fisheries Biologist
Honolulu Laboratory
NOAA Fisheries Service
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Frank Parrish has been a fishery biologist with NOAA Fisheries Service, Honolulu Laboratory for 15 years. His research focuses on benthic and demersal ecology, particularly as it relates to fishery and protected species. He frequently collects data using SCUBA, remotely operated cameras, occupied submersibles, and animal-borne instrumentation. His publications include work on reef fish, deepwater snappers, sharks, lobster, monk seals and diving technology. In recent years his investigations have focused on identifying important foraging habitats of the endangered Hawaiian monk seal and studies of fish assemblages associated with deepwater corals. He serves as a member of the precious coral planning team for the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council and is the NOAA diving supervisor for fisheries operations in Hawai‘i and the Western Pacific.
Ray Boland
Biologist
Honolulu Laboratory
NOAA Fisheries Service
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Ray Boland is a biologist with NOAA Fisheries Service, Honolulu Laboratory. He is presently working with their Ecosystems and Environment Investigation division. Ray has conducted underwater biological surveys on SCUBA in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI) and other remote locations since 1990. In the process, he has pioneered studies on marine debris removal in these areas. He is presently assisting with studies on the forage base for Hawaiian monk seals and precious coral populations. He is a certified NOAA Dive Master, Trimix certified diver, and a certified hyperbaric chamber operator. Ray was born and raised in Kaneohe, Hawai‘i and received his B.S. degree in biology at the University of Hawai‘i.
Sean Corson
Office of National Marine Sanctuaries
NOAA Ocean Service
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Sean Corson is the Sanctuary Designation Coordinator for the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve (Reserve). He is working with Chris Kelley to examine the impacts of bottomfishing on the deepwater benthic habitat in the Reserve. He is particularly interested in developing risk assessments associated with anchors and fishing weights. This is Mr. Corson's second trip to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands with the Hawai‘i Undersea Research Laboratory. He is being trained as a deep-water observer, and will be responsible for identifying and documenting fish and invertebrates videotaped during submersible and ROV operations. Mr. Corson currently is pursuing an M.S. at Yale University.
Charles Holloway
Deputy Operations Director
Hawai‘i Undersea Research Lab
Charles Holloway is the Deputy Operations Director and a Submersible Pilot for the Hawai‘i Undersea Research Labs (HURL) manned submersible program. He began his career at age 16 as an able-bodied seaman (AB) and engine room wiper aboard an intercoastal tanker during his summer break from school. He completed a B.S. in biology in 1982 and began teaching physics and oceanography at the Admiral Farragut Academy, a prep school in New Jersey. In 1984, Mr. Holloway returned to sea working aboard oceanographic research vessels in the equatorial Pacific. He subsequently sailed on numerous schooners throughout the North Atlantic, the Caribbean and the Mediterranean Sea, including the 125-ft staysail schooner with the Sea Education Association out of Woods Hole, MA, and as a scientist and second mate aboard the Westward and the Corwith Cramer. Mr. Holloway later moved to Hawai‘i and in 1995, completed his master's degree in the oceanography department at the University of Hawai‘i. His research projects have included running a yellowfin tuna tagging project using ultrasonic tags and listening stations deployed at local fish-aggregating buoys. In 1996, he began training as a submersible pilot with the Hawai‘i Undersea Research Lab and currently operates both the Pisces IV and Pisces V submersibles.
Christopher Kelley
Biologist
Hawai‘i Undersea Research Lab
Christopher Kelley is the program biologist for the Hawai‘i Undersea Research Laboratory (HURL). His responsibilities include the identification and documentation of fish and invertebrates videotaped during HURL's submersible and ROV operations. Dr. Kelley is also the principal investigator of several projects on the bottomfish fishery in both the main and Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI). One of these projects is examining the impacts of bottomfishing on deepwater benthic habitats in the NWHI reserve. In the main Hawaiian Islands (MHI) he has developed a GIS map of bottomfish habitats and, using submersibles and an ROV, is presently studying the biological communities found in these areas. He and his project team have developed methods to bring up live snappers from 300 to 1000 ft depths and spawn them in captivity. They have also identified unique broadband sonar signatures for a number of bottomfish species as part of the process of developing non-lethal assessment techniques for the fishery. Dr. Kelley earned his PhD at the University of Hawai‘i while researching fish reproductive cycles. He has traveled extensively, providing technical assistance for developing fish hatcheries in Indonesia, Taiwan, the Philippines, Egypt, and Cameroon, West Africa. He was also an aquanaut for the Hydrolab Undersea Habitat in 1982 and assisted in a study on the ecology and social behavior of Caribbean angelfishes.
Terry Kerby
Operations Director
Hawai‘i Undersea Research Lab
Terry Kerby is the Operations Director and Chief Submersible Pilot for the Hawai‘i Undersea Research Labs (HURL) manned submersible program. His responsibilities include managing HURL operations at sea, overseeing the maintenance, reconfiguration, and upgrades of the Pisces IV and Pisces V submersibles, as well as organizing the HURL operations schedule, and conducting exploration dives as pilot of the submersibles. Mr. Kerby began his submersible diving career in 1976 with the company “Deepwater Exploration” in Hawai‘i. "Deep Ex" operated the manned submersible Star II, which had a depth capability of 400 m. Mr. Kerby trained for two years to become familiar with submersible systems and started piloting the Star II in 1978 during a diving exploration project in waters around the Republic of China. He was hired as Operations Director of the newly formed Hawai‘i Undersea Research Lab in 1981 and led the program in its first science dive operations in Enewetak Atoll with the submersible Makali'i. He did the pre-purchase survey on the Pisces V submersible in 1985 in Edinburgh Scotland, and directed the overhaul and reconfiguration of the sub to start HURL's deep diving operations. Mr. Kerby conducted HURL's first exploration dive with the Pisces V on the undersea volcano Loihi in 1987, and has since conducted more than 100 dives on the volcano. He has worked closely with fisheries scientists to establish procedures for using the Pisces subs to better serve the needs of fisheries biologists. He managed the refit and reconfiguration of the Pisces IV in 1999 to establish HURL's second deep diving research submersible.
Robert Moffitt
Fishery Biologist
Honolulu Laboratory
NOAA Fisheries Service
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Robert Moffitt is a Fishery Biologist at NOAA Fisheries Service, Honolulu Laboratory where he has worked for over 25 years. His work focuses on deepwater benthic fish and crustacean research. He is the chair of the Bottomfish Plan Team of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council. In this role, he is responsible for an annual report to the Council assessing the bottomfish resources within all U. S. exclusive economic zone waters under the Council's jurisdiction, including American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands, and Hawai‘i. He also is responsible for evaluating the effectiveness of current management measures and recommending any plan ammendments to the Council for approval. Mr. Moffitt has participated on four HURL projects in the past. Of these, one evaluated deepwater artificial reefs, and another focused on Heterocarpus shrimp assessment using a submersible. Mr. Moffitt is the lead author on the resulting publications. The remaining two projects establish non-lethal assessment techniques for deepwater snappers and determine baseline population sizes for two Restricted Fishing Areas in the Main Hawaiian Island (analysis in progress). He has taken the lead on other NOAA Fisheries bottomfish research including work describing the juvenile opakapaka grounds off Kaneohe Bay.
Bruce Mundy
Honolulu Laboratory
NOAA Fisheries Service
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Bruce Mundy is a Fishery Biologist at the NOAA Fisheries Service Honolulu Laboratory where he has worked for 17 years. His research focuses on the biogeography and biodiversity of central Pacific fishes. His current research projects include publication of an annotated checklist of all Hawaiian fishes; assessment of reef fish biodiversity at remote U.S. equatorial islands using scuba surveys; and participation in HURL surveys of bottomfish diversity and habitats. He was coauthor of the first published paper summarizing fish observations from HURL submersible surveys. Mr. Mundy's administrative duties include evaluations of introduced species problems in Hawai`i and evaluations of NOAA Fisheries-funded aquaculture projects in the state. The primary area of his past research was the distribution and identification of larval stages of Pacific fishes, including studies at seamounts north of the Hawaiian Islands, off of O`ahu, and at Palmyra Atoll in the equatorial Pacific. He has participated in community efforts to strengthen marine reserves as fisheries management tools on O`ahu. Prior to moving to Hawai`i, Mr. Mundy worked in Oregon for ten years and in New York for two on studies of larval fish distributions and recruitment. He received his M.S. in biological oceanography at Oregon State University and his B.S. from Southampton College of Long Island University.
Rachel Shackelford
Data Manager
Hawai‘i Undersea Research Laboratory
Rachel Shackelford is the Data Dept. Manager for the Hawai‘i Undersea Research Laboratory. Ms. Shackelford earned a B.S. degree in biology and an M.S. in oceanography at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa. She is very interested in promoting quality science education in Hawai‘i and will serve as the main point of contact between the ship and the public following the trip via the Web site. Ms. Shackelford will compile daily logs reporting the activity at sea and will send them along with images back to shore so that they can be posted to the Web site. She also will be spending a lot of time in the ROV control room, monitoring the video that is collected so that she can learn how to identify the animals seen in the deep waters around the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
Leg 2—Northampton Seamounts
John R. Smith
Marine Geophysical Scientist
Hawai‘i Undersea Research Laboratory
John R. Smith is the Chief Scientist for the mapping cruise to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI) aboard the R/V Kilo Moana. He is an oceanographer specializing in marine geology and geophysics and has been using various acoustical (mostly sonar) methods to study the seafloor and subseafloor for the past 20 years in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the Caribbean Sea, and the Gulf of Mexico. Many of Dr. Smith's projects have been focused on deep ocean mapping of active submarine volcanoes, the unstable flanks of oceanic islands leading to giant underwater landslides that cause enormous seismic sea waves (tsunamis). More recently, he has studied shallow water benthic habitat mapping in support of fisheries assessment and management. He has also visited the seafloor in numerous occupied submersibles including the deep diving Russian MIRs made famous in the film Titanic. Dr. Smith attended Florida Tech for undergraduate training, worked in the offshore petroleum exploration survey industry for several years, then returned to academia at the University of Hawai‘i for graduate school and eventual employment with the Hawai‘i Undersea Research Laboratory (HURL). There, he manages the seafloor sonar mapping program, occasionally pilots the ROV, and does data processing and research during the “dry” season on land. One of Dr. Smith's long term goals is to complete mapping of the Hawaiian Ridge with modern multibeam swath sonar systems. The main islands are nearly finished, thanks to the efforts of numerous organizations, but the NWHI are mostly untouched in this regard.
LTJG Ben Evans
Pacific Field Support Liaison
Office of Coast Survey
NOAA Ocean Service
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
LTJG Ben Evans will represent the Office of Coast Survey (OCS), NOAA Ocean Service aboard R/V Kilo Moana for the 2002 Northwest Hawaiian Islands cruise. As OCS representative to the project, LTJG Evans will be responsible for monitoring multi-beam sonar data acquisition to ensure that the data collected can be used to update NOAA nautical charts in the project area. LTJG Evans holds a B.A. in physics from Williams College and an Oceanographic Engineer's degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program, where his graduate research focused on acoustic navigation systems for autonomous underwater vehicles. He received his commission in the NOAA Corps in 2000. After completing Basic Officer Training Class, he reported to his first assignment as junior officer and later Field Operations Officer aboard the NOAA Ship Rude, where he participated in coastal hydrographic surveys throughout the northeastern United States. LTJG Evans is currently assigned to NOAA's Hydrographic Systems and Technology Programs, a component of the Coast Survey Development Laboratory.
Joyce Miller
Marine Geologist and Oceanographer
Honolulu Laboratory
NOAA Fisheries Service
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Joyce Miller is a marine geologist and oceanographer with the NOAA Fisheries Coral Reef Ecosystem Investigation in Honolulu, Hawai‘i. She is originally from Indiana where she received a Master's Degree from Indiana University in German education in 1969. She worked as a Peace Corps teacher in Liberia and as a translator in Germany. She did graduate work in marine geology at the University of Hawai‘i from 1974 to 1979 and worked as an oceanographer there until 1981. Since then, Ms. Miller has specialized in seafloor mapping work using multibeam sonar technologies and has worked with NOAA's Ocean Service (NOS), the Naval Oceanographic Office (NAVOCEANO), and the University of Rhode Island's Ocean Mapping Center. From 1991 to 1998, she was a Senior Scientist at Science Applications Intl. Corp. (SAIC) where she helped to provide system and survey technologies to NAVOCEANO, NOAA, and commercial customers. She served as Surveyor on SAIC's 1995 contract that was the first commercial hydrographic multibeam survey for NOAA. In 1997, she was certified as an Offshore Hydrographer by the American Congress of Surveying and Mapping and spent 1998 working with the Phillippine Navy's hydrographic service as training coordinator for two new Philippine survey ships. She has spent more than seven years at sea professionally. Ms. Miller joined CREI permanently in 2002 and is in charge of acoustic benthic habitat mapping for the group.
LTJG Jeremy Weirich
Maritime Archaeological Program Officer
Office of Ocean Exploration
National Oceanic and Atmoshperice Administration
LTJG Jeremy Weirich works for NOAA's Office of Ocean Exploration (OE) as the Maritime Archaeological Program Officer. His role for the 2002 Northwestern Hawaiian Islands cruise is to help with the multi-beam sonar data acquisition and processing for use in NOAA's nautical charts. He acquired a B.S. in marine science at Maine Maritime Academy and an M.S. in maritime archaeology at the University of Southampton, UK, specializing in marine chemistry and remote sensing. Prior to joining OOE, LTJG Weirich was a junior officer and later a field operations officer aboard the NOAA Ship Whiting, a hydrographic survey vessel that uses the same multi-beam system as the R/V Kilo Moana.
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