USNC Announces Dr. Wes Tunnell as Committee Vice Chair

The USNC is pleased to announce Dr. Wes Tunnell as the new Vice-Chair for United States National Committee.

Dr. Tunnell has been a very active member of the USNC since 2005, hosting the committee's Fall 2006 meeting at the beautiful new Harte Research Institution (HRI), located on the campus of Texas A & M University, Corpus Christi.

"We're all very excited that Wes has taken on the additional responsibilities of Vice Chair. There is no doubt that Wes will be a key catalyst in growing and securing the legacies of the Census of Marine Life program both within the US and abroad," said USNC Program Coordina-tor, Michael Feldman.

Dr. Tunnell leads Gulf of Mexico- Past, Present and Future (GoMx) project, the first officially affiliated project of the CoML. He is the founder of the Center for Coastal Studies (1984), developer and promoter of the co-location concept of environmental and natural resources agencies to the TAMUCC campus (1980s-90s), and a strong proponent of cooperation and collaboration in the US, Mexico, and Cuba to promote the HRI's mission of sustainable use and conservation of the Gulf of Mexico.

Dr. Tunnell became Associate Director of HRI in 2001 and has played a key role in its development, in designing the new HRI building and in developing a new Ph.D. program in Coastal and Marine System Science. He is also Director of the Center for Coastal Studies and Professor of Biology. He is a broadly trained marine biologist/ecologist with a particular interest in field studies on coral reefs and coastal areas of the Gulf of Mexico.