Beginning June 10 2010, Dr. Walter Boynton, a professor at the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES), will be the new Chair of the Chesapeake Bay Program Tidal Monitoring Analysis Workgroup (TMAW). Walter has been actively researching Chesapeake Bay for over 30 years and has published dozens of scientific papers and book chapters from this research. Walter and his long time colleague, Dr. Michael Kemp from Horn Point Laboratory were recently awarded the prestigious Odum Award for Lifetime Achievement by the Coasts and Estuaries Research Federation.

The Chesapeake Bay Program monitoring program has been collecting and analyzing water quality data for over 25 years. This data is used as a basis for the annual EcoCheck report card and also serves to inform the Total Maximum Daily Load analysis and develop water quality criteria. TMAW is responsible for the originally setting up this monitoring program and actively reevaluates monitoring priorities while tracking the results of the Chesapeake Bay restoration efforts. The focus of TMAW's effort in the coming year will be developing dissolved oxygen criteria, a topic for which Walter has developed considerable expertise. Walter will be working closely with the Chesapeake Bay Program staff, in particular Drs. Jeni Keisman and Peter Tango.

Walter succeeds previous chairs of TMAW, Drs. Rob Magnien (now heading NOAA's Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean Research) and William Dennison (UMCES) who is chairing the newly formed Scientific Technical Analysis and Reporting (STAR) team.

An example of Walter's synthetic ability can be viewed via his online seminar entitled "Corsica River Estuary restoration saga: Data, analysis and lessons learned" on the IAN Seminar Series website.