Nancy N. Rabalais became the fourth Executive Director of Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium on June 14, 2005. Dr. Rabalais has been a researcher and faculty member with LUMCON since June 1983.
Dr. Rabalais is internationally known for her research on the dynamics of hypoxic environments and interactions of the Mississippi River with the Gulf of Mexico. She additionally studies estuarine and coastal eutrophication, benthic ecology, and environmental effects of habitat alterations and contaminants. She and her research team are currently involved in studies of multiple environmental stressors in the Barataria estuary, the “Dead Zone” in the Gulf of Mexico, coastal observing systems, and phytoplankton taxonomy, ecology and physiology.
Dr. Rabalais is an American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow, an Aldo Leopold Leadership Program Fellow, a Past President of the Estuarine Research Federation, a National Associate of the National Academies of Science, and past Chair of the Ocean Studies Board of the National Research Council, National Academy of Science.
Dr. Rabalais received the 2002 Bostwick H. Ketchum Award for coastal research from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and several research and environmental awards for her work on the causes and consequences of Gulf hypoxia. These include the Blasker Award for Environmental Science and Engineering shared with Dr. Gene Turner, a NOAA Environmental Hero Award, a Gulf Guardian Award, and a Clean Water Act Hero,
Dr. Rabalais serves as a member of the Ocean Research and Resources Advisory Panel of the U.S. Ocean Action Plan and is working with the Joint Subcommittee on Ocean Science and Technology on its priorities for marine research, a member of the Scientific Steering Committee of the Land-Ocean Interchange in the Coastal Zone program (an International Biosphere Geosphere Programme), a member of a National Research Committee on the Mississippi River and the Clean Water Act, a member of the Gulf of Mexico Program Nutrient Enrichment Focus Team, and a member of the Louisiana Hypoxia Working Group. Dr. Rabalais serves the scientific community on many expert panels, workshops, and symposia, and provides advice at the local, state and federal level.
Prior to LUMCON, Dr. Rabalais was a Research Associate then Graduate Student at the Marine Science Institute of the University of Texas at Port Aransas. She joined LUMCON as a Research Associate with then Executive Director Don Boesch in 1983. She passed through the Assistant and Associate ranks and was named a Professor in 1997.
Dr. Rabalais earned her Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees from Texas A&I University in 1972 and 1975, and a Ph.D. in Zoology from The University of Texas at Austin in 1983.
She and her husband, Gene Turner of Louisiana State University, are collaborators and colleagues in science and are proud of their best reprint, Emily Kathryn Hana Turner, a high school student at the Louisiana State University Laboratory School.
Director's Messages
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