Dr. James Cloern
Estuarine Ecologist Receives 2010 Ketchum Award
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) has chosen Jim Cloern, a senior research scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey for the last 34 years, as the recipient of the 2010 Bostwick H. Ketchum Award.The 15th winner of the award, Cloern has focused his studies on the comparative ecology and biogeochemistry of estuaries, aimed at understanding how they respond as ecosystems to climatic-hydrologic variability and human disturbance. He is currently leading a study of the San Francisco Bay that includes investigation of nutrient cycling, algal and zooplankton community dynamics, ecosystem metabolism and food web dynamics. He is also examining disturbances by introduced species, Bay-Ocean connectivity, ecosystem restoration and projected responses to climate change.
The WHOI award recognizes Cloern’s “excellence in estuarine ecology especially his conceptual models of important estuarine processes, collaborations within the US and abroad, advising students and post-docs, commitment to a long-term monitoring program, and ability to translate his results to policymakers.”
The Ketchum Award, administered by the WHOI Coastal Ocean Institute and the Rinehart Coastal Research Center, was established in 1983 to honor an internationally recognized scientist who demonstrates an innovative approach to coastal research, leadership in the scientific community, and who forges a link between coastal research and societal issues.
The award is named for renowned oceanographer Bostwick H. "Buck" Ketchum, who served WHOI for more than 40 years as a graduate student, scientist, chairman of the Biology Department, member of the Corporation, and as Associate Director of the Institution (1962 to 1977). Like his mentor, the late physiologist and oceanographer Alfred C. Redfield, Ketchum was equally at home in the physical, chemical, and biological realms. His broad view of oceanography and his appreciation for the synergy of marine phenomena are evident in more than 70 papers he authored on subjects ranging from estuarine physics to deep ocean biology.
Cloern has been a Fulbright Research Scholar at the Centre d'Océanologie de Marseille, has mentored 11 postdoctoral scientists and19 graduate students from six countries, taught scientific writing at the Université de Bretagne Occidentale, is Consulting Professor (Civil Engineering) at Stanford University, and Co-Editor of Estuaries and Coasts.
