Mike Beck is a Senior Scientist with the Marine Initiative of The Nature Conservancy and a research associate at the University of California Santa Cruz. He works in the interface between marine science and policy. His present work includes research on (i) marine regional planning, (ii) the nursery role of nearshore habitats such as kelp forests, (iii) tools for ecosystem-based management and land-sea integration, (iv) the conservation and restoration of nearshore habitats including shellfish reefs and beds, and (v) marine proprietary rights including the lease and ownership of submerged lands

Alexandria Boehm is the Clare Boothe Luce assistant professor of environmental engineering at Stanford University. Her research interests include coastal water quality, coastal transport processes and their influence on pollution, water borne pathogens, microbial pollution, water quality indicators, particle fate in water, coagulation, sedimentation, analysis of large data sets, and applied math. She teaches undergraduate and graduate level courses on environmental engineering, coastal contamination, pathogens in the environment, and environmental health microbiology. Boehm's research is focused on understanding coastal water quality at a number of field sites along the California Coast including Stinson Beach, Santa Cruz Beach, Lovers Point, and Huntington Beach. She serves as a member of the State of California Clean Beach Task Force. She was awarded a National Science Foundation CAREER award in 2007. Boehm received a Ph.D. and M.S. in Environmental Engineering in 2000 and 1997, respectively, from University of California Irvine. She received a B.S. with honors in Engineering and Applied Science from California Institute of Technology in 1996.

Chris Coburn works as the Water Resources Program Analyst for Santa Cruz County. His work at the County focuses on the administration of various water quality and fisheries projects and the management of beach water quality research and protection efforts. Prior to his work with the County, Chris served as the Water Quality Protection Program Director for the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. Chris earned a Master's Degree in Environmental Science and Management with an emphasis in Water Resources Management from the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Chris also has a Bachelor's Degree in Biopsychology also from U.C.S.B.

Bruce Daniels has served for six years as a Director, and for the last several years as President, of the Soquel Creek Water District. He served for over six years as a Member and as Vice-Chair and Chair of the state's Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board. He was the founder and first Chair of Santa Cruz County Sierra Club's Water Resources Committee. Bruce is a member of technical organizations like the Association of Ground Water Scientists & Engineers and many local environmental groups. Bruce received his education in Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he received a B.S. and M.S. and also did some work in their Ph.D. program. He has worked at H.P., Apple, Oracle, Borland, and his own start-up Singular Software. He currently works at Sun Microsystems where he has been doing application design and software development tools.

Dr. Griggs received his B.A. in Geology in 1965 from the University of California, Santa Barbara and a Ph.D. in Oceanography from Oregon State University in 1968. He has been a Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz since 1968 and has served as Chairman of the Department of Earth Sciences, Associate Dean of Natural Sciences, and has been the Director of the Institute of Marine Sciences and Long Marine Laboratory since 1991. He has served as Chair of the University of California Marine Council since its inception in 1999. He also serves on the California Sea Grant Advisory Board. In 1998 he was given the Outstanding Faculty Award in the Division of Physical and Biological Sciences at UC Santa Cruz. In 2003 he was awarded the CSBPA Joe Johnson Coastal Research Award. The UCSC Alumni Association honored him with a Distinguished Teaching Award in 2006. In 2007 he was honored with being asked to give the Ed Ricketts Memorial Lecture for lifetime achievement in marine research and education. His research and teaching have been focused on the coast of California and include coastal processes, hazards, and coastal engineering. Dr. Griggs has written over 145 articles for professional journals as well as co-authored several books: The Earth and Land Use Planning; Geologic Hazards, Resources and Environmental Planning; Living with the California Coast; California’s Coastal Hazards: A Critical Assessment of Existing Land Use Policies and Practices; Coastal Protection Structures and Their Effectiveness; Living with the Changing California Coast; and The Santa Cruz Coast: Then and Now.

Steve Lonhart is the Senior Scientist for the Sanctuary Integrated Monitoring Network (SIMoN) at the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. He is involved in multiple research and monitoring projects in the sanctuary, with an emphasis on nearshore kelp forests and the rocky intertidal. His research interests include invasive species and their impact on native ecosystems and the response of marine organisms to climate change. Steve has three degrees in biology: a B.S. from UCLA, M.S. from CSU Long Beach, and a Ph.D. from UCSC. In addition to working for the sanctuary since 2002, he is a Research Associate with the Institute of Marine Sciences at UCSC.

Baldo Marinovic is a marine ecologist with a specialty in zooplankton biology. He is both a Research Biologist with the Institute of Marine Sciences and a Lecturer with the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology - both part of the University of California at Santa Cruz. His research focuses on the role of zooplankton dynamics, particularly krill, within the pelagic ecosystem of the California Current. In addition to conducting research, Baldo teaches several core courses in marine science and general biology at UCSC including Invertebrate Zoology, Ecology & Evolution, and General Biology. He received both his B.Sci. in Biology and M.S. in Marine Sciences from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and he received his Ph.D. from the University of Western Australia where he was a Fulbright Scholar.

John Pearse was raised in Tucson, Arizona where he worked at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. He received a bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. from Stanford University, working on the reproductive ecology of Antarctic sea stars. After teaching at the American University in Cairo, and doing research on kelp forest ecology at the California Institute of Technology, he joined the faculty of the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he taught courses in invertebrate zoology, kelp forest ecology, and intertidal biology for 26 years. After retiring he helped develop an intertidal monitoring program that has been adopted by the National Marine Sanctuaries in California, LiMPETS (http://limpets.noaa.gov). He is the author of numerous research papers, edited a multivolume treatise on the reproduction of marine invertebrates, and he and his wife were coauthors of the textbook "Living Invertebrates." He is past president of the Western Society of Naturalists, Santa Cruz Natural History Museum Association, and the California Academy of Sciences, and is currently president of the Society for Comparative and Integrative Biology.

Lisa C. Sloan’s research focuses on (1) the mechanisms responsible for past warm climate states in Earth history, and (2) possible future climate scenarios and associated impacts upon human and natural systems. Sloan graduated with a Ph.D. in Geosciences from the Pennsylvania State University in 1990. After a 2-year postdoctoral position at the University of Michigan, Sloan joined the Institute of Marine Sciences at UC Santa Cruz as a Research Associate. In 1995 she was appointed an Assistant Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at UCSC. She is currently a Professor in that same department, where she is also the Director of the Climate Change and Impacts Laboratory. Sloan has authored over 50 publications and book chapters on topics of future climate change and paleoclimate change, and has given dozens of public lectures on the topic of California’s future climate over the past several years. She was the recipient of an “Outstanding Young Scientist” Fellowship from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation in 1996, and served as a national officer of the American Geophysical Society for many years. She also has served as editor-in-chief of the international journals Global and Planetary Change; and Paleoceanography. She serves on key advisory panels at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the National Science Foundation. In addition, Sloan also currently serves as the Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies at UC Santa Cruz. She can be reached at lsloan@ucsc.edu; (831-459-5079), and she would love to work on climate change problems at global and regional scales with interested parties.

Originally from Colorado, Melissa Stevens attended University of Colorado at Boulder and received her B.Sci. in Environmental Biology. Melissa spent one year of undergraduate school at Murdoch University in Western Australia studying marine biology. She participated in field research of lemon sharks in Bahamas (1997-98), attended Moss Landing Marine Laboratories from 1999-2002 (M.S. Marine Science; master's thesis: 'Age, Growth and Radiometric Validation of the Blackgill rockfish, Sebastes melanostomus"), worked for the Seafood Watch program of the Monterey Bay Aquarium as a Research Analyst from mid-2001 to 2004, traveled extensively in Central and South America in 2005, then returned to Santa Cruz to get back into marine science. Melissa worked at Friends of Moss Landing Marine Lab as Education Programs Manager developing a place-based fisheries education project for local middle and high school youth. She currently works for California Sea Grant Extension Program, participating in a research project to understand changes to Central and Northern California fishing communities and harbor infrastructure over time.

Ken Baltz currently works as an oceanographer for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service in Santa Cruz CA and as a Senior Reserve Officer for the United States Coast Guard in San Francisco CA. His oceanographic research and field work focuses on sustainable fisheries and habitat stewardship. Ken also works within the US Coast Guard’s Marine Environmental Protection Division of Sector San Francisco where he specializes in responses to maritime incidents, collisions, groundings, and hazardous material spills within the navigable waters of central and northern California. Ken has worked as an environmental educator, charter sailboat captain in the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, NOAA working diver, and research oceanographer. Ken has studied marine mammals, Pacific rockfish populations, Humboldt squid ecology, upwelling dynamics, primary productivity within the California Current System, invertebrate ecology, and living marine resource management within Hawaiian/central Pacific, and North Atlantic waters.