Bill Dennison - Curriculum Vitae
PERSONAL DETAILS
| Name | Bill Dennison |
| dennison@umces.edu |
ACADEMIC DETAILS
| 1981-1984 | Ph.D. The University of Chicago Chicago IL USA (Biology) |
| 1978-1979 | M.S. University of Alaska Fairbanks AK USA (Biological Oceanography) |
| 1972-1976 | B.A. Western Michigan University Kalamazoo MI USA (Biology, Environmental Science) |
EMPLOYMENT
| 2002- | Vice President for Science Application and Professor, University of Maryland Center of Environmental Science |
| 2000-2001 | Reader, Department of Botany, University of Queensland, Brisbane QLD Australia |
| 1995-1999 | Senior Lecturer, Department of Botany, University of Queensland, Brisbane QLD Australia |
| 1992-1994 | Lecturer, Department of Botany, University of Queensland, Brisbane QLD Australia |
| 1987-1992 | Research Assistant Professor, Horn Point Environmental Laboratory, University of Maryland, Cambridge MD USA |
| 1984-1987 | Coastal Marine Scholar, Marine Sciences Research Center, State University of New York, Stony Brook NY USA |
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Dr. Bill Dennison is a Professor of Marine Science and Vice President for Science Applications at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES). Dr. Dennison’s primary mission within UMCES is to coordinate the Integration and Application Network (IAN), a group of scientists committed to solving, not just studying, environmental problems. IAN is a collection of Science Integrators and Science Communicators that work closely with various agencies, foundations and non-government organizations to develop integrated science products using principles of science communication.Bill rejoined UMCES in 2002 following a ten year stint at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. He originally started at UMCES (then the Center for Environmental and Estuarine Science) in 1987 as a Research Assistant Professor based at Horn Point Laboratory. In Australia, Bill worked with an active Marine Botany group at the University of Queensland. Bill obtained his academic training from Western Michigan University (B.A), the University of Alaska (M.S), The University of Chicago (Ph.D), and State University of New York at Stony Brook at Stony Brook (Postdoc). Bill began studying seagrasses for his MS in Alaska in 1978, did his PhD research in Woods Hole, and then joined Stony Brook to study Long Island seagrasses and the “brown tide” algal blooms. Bill is currently co-leading an international group of seagrass scientists through the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis on global trajectories of seagrasses, building a global seagrass database, writing a series of scientific papers and producing a suite of science communication products to raise the profile of seagrasses and seagrass conservation.
Some current activities:
- Chair, Science and Technical Advisory Committee, Maryland Coastal Bays Program (2008-)
- Judging Panel, BBVA Foundation (Madrid, Spain) Ecology and Conservation Biology Award; 500,000 Euros (2008)
- Chair, Tidal Monitoring and Analysis Workgroup, Chesapeake Bay Program (2004-present)
- Member, Maryland BayStat
- Director, International Riverfoundation, Brisbane, Australia (2004-present)
- Judging Panel, International Riverprize (Brisbane, Australia) $A300,000 (2003-present)
- Member, Land-Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone Scientific Steering Committee (2003-present)
- Overseer, Sea Education Association, Woods Hole, MA (2007-present)
- Member, Science Advisory Panel, Reef Water Quality Partnership, Townsville, Australia (2006-present)
GRADUATE STUDENT SUPERVISION
PhDs
Ben Longstaff PhD 2003 - Investigations into the light requirements of seagrasses in northeast Australia.
Katherine Chaston PhD 2002 -Sediment Nutrient Bioavailability in a Sub-tropical Catchment Dominated by Agriculture: The Transition from Land to Sea.
Simon Costanzo PhD 2002 - Design and Implementation of Baseline Monitoring Tools and Strategies for Assessing Australian Coastal Waters.
David Haynes PhD 2001 - Pesticide and Heavymetal Concentrations in Great Barrier Reef Sediment, Seagrass and Dugongs (Dugong dugon).
Michele Burford PhD 2000 - Fate and Transformation of Dietary Nitrogen in Penaeid Prawn Aquaculture ponds.
Mark O’Donohue PhD 2000 - Environmental Controls of Primary Productivity, Biological Indicators and Ecosystem Health: A case study in Moreton Bay, Australia.
Adrian Jones PhD 1999 - Environmental Management of Aquaculture Effluent: Development of Biological Indicators and Biological Filters.
Christine Perry PhD 1997 - Microbial Processes in Seagrass Sediments.
James Udy PhD 1997 - Seagrass and Sediment Nutrients: Growth and Physiological Responses of Seagrasses to Elevated Nutrients in Australia.
Eva Abal PhD 1996 - Light, Nutrient and Water Quality Interactions with the Seagrass Zostera capricorni Aschers.
Masters
Mark Crossley MPhil 2002 - The Effects of Water Flow, pH and Nutrition on the Growth of the Native Aquatic Plant, Aponogeton elongatus.
Honours/Post graduate diploma
Tracey Saxby BSc (Hons) 2001 - Photosynthetic responses of the coral Montipora digitata to cold temperature stress.
Ian Hewson BSc (Hons) 2000 - Dynamics of Marine Viruses Along Autrophication Gradients in Australian Subtropical Estuaries.
Andrew Watkinson BSc (Hons) 2000 - Ecophysiology of the Marine Cyanobacterium Lyngbya Majuscula (Oscillatoriacea).
Catherine Collier BSc (Hons) 1999 - Internal Nitrogen Cycling in Three Seagrasses: patterns and process.
Joelle Prange BSc (Hons) 1999 - The Cycling of Trace Metals in Seagrass Environments.
Elizabeth King 1999 - Assessment of Water Quality using Phytoplankton in Two Estuaries (Queensland, Australia).
Graham Webb BEnvSc 1999 - Assessing zooplankton grazing in Moreton Bay by measuring short-term changes in chlorophyll a concentrations.
Chris Roelfsema PgDipMarSci 1999 - Spatial Distribution of Benthic Microalgae on Coral Reefs Determined by Remote Sensing.
Phillip Kay BSc (Hons) 1998 - Phytoplankton Bioassays: Technique Development for Assessing Bioavailability of Sediment Phosphorus in Aquatic Ecosystems.
Sabine Roberts PgDipMarSci 1997 - The Effects of Dugong Grazing on Seagrass Communities in Moreton Bay.
Jane Rogers BSc (Hons) 1997 - Responses of Mangrove Forests to Natural and Experimental Nutrient Gradients in Moreton Bay, Australia
Bernard Dudley BSc (Hons) 1996 - Nitrogen Fixation and the Seagrass Halodule uninervus (Forsk) Aschers.
Scott Lowe BEnvSc 1996 - Estuarine Macrophytes as Nutrient Bioindicators for Tracing Sewage Effluent in the Maroochy River, Queensland.
Simon Costanzo BSc (Hons) 1996 - Marine Macroalgae (Rhodophyta) as a Biological Indicator of Pulsed Nutrients in Oligotrophic Waters.
Rhona McPhee BEnvSc 1995 - Assessing Red Algae Associated with Mangroves as Bioindicators of Nutrient Availability.
Ben Longstaff BSc (Hons) 1995 - The Effects of Light Deprivation on the Survival and Recovery of the Seagrass Halophila ovalis.
Adrian Jones BSc (Hons) 1994 - Influence of Nitrogen Source and Availability on Amino Acids, Pigments and Tissue Nitrogen of Gracilaria edulis (Rhodophyta).
Shane Dawson BSc (Hons) 1994 - Effects of Ultraviolet and Photosynthetically Active Radiation on Five Seagrass Species.
Angela Grice BSc (Hons) 1993 - Light Intensity Effects on the Carbon and Nitrogen Stable Isotope Ratios and Tissue Contents of Five Seagrass Species.
Tracey O\'Connell BSc (Hons) 1993 - Nutrients in a North Stradbroke Island Mangrove Forest.
Patricia Bowen BSc (Hons) 1993 - Morphological and Genetic Variation in the Seagrass, Zostera capricorni.
Janine Horrocks BSc (Hons) 1992 - Tissue Nutrient Content of Gracilaria spp. (Rhodophyta) and Water Quality of Logan River and Southern Moreton Bay.
RESEARCH
Seagrass Ecophysiology
I have been studying seagrass ecophysiology since my Master’s thesis. My investigations have encompassed a wide range of experimental field and laboratory studies. These studies have recently benefited from the high seagrass diversity in Australia, providing a unique comparative approach to each of the ecophysiological investigations. With my PhD and Honours students, I have developed a comprehensive conceptual model that relates seagrass morphology to physiology so that light, nutrient, water motion and grazing effects on seagrasses can be placed into a successional and evolutionary context (Walker et al., 1999). We have also related seagrass responses to sediment biogeochemical processes, interpreted dugong grazing as corals-evolution with selected seagrass species, provided an interpretation of seagrass δ13C and δ15N values, pioneered photosynthetic assessment of seagrasses using PAM fluorometry, determined effects of ultraviolet light, high and low light regimes, and total light deprivation through in situ and laboratory experiments, developed new techniques for measuring sediment nutrient pools and fluxes relevant to seagrasses, assessed the effects of metals, and using laboratory and in situ 15N tracer additions to assess uptake, assimilation and translocation.
Ecological Health Assessment
A series of projects beginning with a water quality study in 1992 has led to a program of assessing ecological health of various coastal marine ecosystems. The development of a suite of nutrient bioindicators using marine plants has provided essential tools for assessing ecological health. Phytoplankton productivity responses to nutrient additions are used to delineate nitrogen vs. phosphorus limitation, macroalgal metabolic profiling is used to discern form of nitrogen taken up and amount of ambient dissolved nutrients in a wide variety of locations, seagrass depth range transects are used as a water quality monitoring tool, vegetation isotopic signatures (δ13C and δ15N) are used to distinguish source of carbon and nitrogen in marine habitats, particularly sewage nitrogen. The creation of conceptual models to encapsulate current understanding of key ecological processes, anthropogenic impact zones, and critical habitats have been used to communicate scientific results and to focus scientific efforts. These assessment tools have been developed and tested in a series of coastal embayment studies culminating in an Ecological Health Monitoring Program in SE Queensland and a national audit of Australian estuaries, a national eutrophication assessment in the US (National Estuarine Eutrophication Assessment, 2007), Chesapeake Bay report card.