Meet the QARTOD Board of Advisors! The BoA broadly represents the oceanographic observing and data management communities. Responsibilities include: setting priorities for work efforts; ensuring that requirements are addressed; guiding overall progress; providing recommendations for approval of QA/QC manuals to the IOOS Program Director; and, identifying subject matter experts for the working groups/sensor committees.These twelve well-regarded BoA members have diverse interests and skills, so as to span all aspects of real-time quality control. They provide highly valued guidance and vision to the QARTOD project, author/co-author papers, conduct outreach, and contribute case studies or examples to be included in manuals. Members meet quarterly to review project status and suggest future activities.

Kathleen (Kathy) Bailey - kathleen.bailey@noaa.gov

Kathy is with the NOAA U.S. Integrated Ocean System Program Office, where she manages the Data Management and Cyberinfrastructure (DMAC) program. DMAC activities include management of a model output visualization and analysis tool (the IOOS Model Viewer), QARTOD project management, and oversight of data access and delivery of nonfederal observation data through federal systems and products. She joined the QARTOD BOA in 2015.

Julie Bosch - julie.bosch@noaa.gov

Julie is with NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information. She is the author or co-author of many papers focusing on oceanographic data structure, data mining, information science and process improvement, and all facets of data quality. She is a Gulf of Mexico Regional Science Officer, and a charter member of the QARTOD Project.

Eugene Burger - eugene.burger@noaa.gov

Eugene, Associate Director for Information Technology for the NOAA Pacific Marine and Environmental Laboratory Office of the Director, supports PMEL’s Science Data Integration project. He joined the QARTOD BOA in 2015.

Mark Bushnell - mark.bushnell@noaa.gov

Mark, National Coordinator for the QARTOD project, is a physical oceanographer. He served as chief scientist on 23 cruises aboard NOAA research vessels, managed the NOS Ocean Systems Test & Evaluation Program, retiring from NOAA after 30 years. He is a charter member of the IOC Ocean Best Practices System Project Steering Group and the U.S. CLIVAR Uncertainty Quantification Working Group. He assisted in forming the QARTOD Project.

Jennifer Dorton - jdorton@secoora.org

Jennifer, Deputy Director for the South East Coastal Ocean Observing Regional Association (SECOORA) Regional Coastal Ocean Observing System, is responsible for overseeing the development of SECOORA’s updated regional observing plan, managing data and communications, coordinating SECOORA’s Principal Investigators (PIs), and growing their observing system. Jennifer has years of experience leading grant funded programs and projects at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, starting in 2004. She has served as a PI on the SECOORA-funded UNCW Coastal Ocean Research and Monitoring Program and as the lead PI on the Marine Weather Portal web development project. Jennifer has worked as the coordinator for NOAA teams such as NOAA in the Carolinas and the North Carolina Sentinel Site Cooperative. Jennifer and her husband, Jay Styron, also own and operate Carolina Mariculture Co., an oyster farm where they use off-bottom mariculture techniques to farm raise oysters. She joined the QARTOD BOA in 2018.

Regina Easley - regina.easley@nist.gov

Regina, Research Chemist for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Chemical Sciences Division of the Materials Measurement Laboratory, co-manages the electroanalytical chemistry laboratory, which produces pH Certified Reference Materials, and works to improve methods to measure inorganic carbon dioxide in seawater. She is an affiliated faculty member at Georgetown University / Environmental Metrology and Policy, a collaboration between GU, NIST and the Environmental Protection Agency. She joined the QARTOD BOA in 2020.

Karen Grissom - karen.grissom@noaa.gov

Karen is the Lead Scientist and an oceanographer at NOAA’s National Data Buoy Center (NDBC). In this role she assists NDBC in mission requirements refinement and bridges the gap between scientific research and the operational observing community. In addition, she leads the NDBC Tropical Atmosphere Ocean observing group, and is the NDBC project manager responsible for data management quality assurance processes that govern the quality control of all NDBC data. She has served as co-PI on the NOAA funded pilot study to enhance ocean boundary layer observations in support of the Tropical Pacific Observing System and serves on a number of WMO groups, including OceanSITES, DBCP, SG-OOIS, and ET-QTC. Prior to joining the NWS, Karen worked as an oceanographic application engineer for a sensor manufacturer, a hydrogeologist for the State of Florida, and an oceanographer within NOAA’s National Ocean Service. She joined the QARTOD BOA in 2020.

Robert Heitsenrether - robert.heitsenrether@noaa.gov

Bob, Manager of the Ocean Systems Test and Evaluation Program (OSTEP) at NOAA’s National Ocean Service / Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS) facilitates the transition of new technology into CO-OPS’ suite of operational tools, including microwave water level sensors, global positioning systems for vertical leveling of water level sensors, and easily deployed buoys for current surveys. Bob joined the QARTOD BOA in 2018.

Jeffrey King - Jeffrey.K.King@usace.army.mil

Jeff, Deputy National Lead for the U.S Army Corps of Engineers’ Engineering With Nature® (EWN®) initiative, manages a broad array of EWN activities and collaborative efforts. Dr. King is also advancing R&D projects within the EWN portfolio and also serves as a research environmental engineer at the US Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC)’s Environmental
Laboratory. Before joining USACE and serving in his current role, Jeff was the acting director of NOAA’s Hollings Marine Laboratory (HML) in Charleston, South Carolina. The HML research mission is to provide science and technology to sustain, protect, and restore coastal ecosystems—with an emphasis on understanding the linkages between the condition of the coastal environment and human health and well-being. Jeff joined the BOA in 2018.

Mario Tamburri - tamburri@umces.edu

Mario, Director of the Alliance for Coastal Technologies and Director of the Marine Environmental Resource Center at the University of Maryland / Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, has expertise in sustainable urban waterfronts, environmental technologies and observing systems, chemical ecology of aquatic organisms, and prevention and management invasive species ecology. He received the Faculty Award for Excellence in Public Service by the University System of Maryland Regents Faculty in 2017, and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science President’s Award for Science Application in 2015. He is a charter member of the QARTOD Project.

Julie Thomas - jothomas@ucsd.edu

Julie, Chair of the QARTOD Board of Advisors, is retired from the University of California San Diego/Scripps Institution of Oceanography. She’s a past participant in the National Academy of Sciences Earth-Space decadal survey panel, present co-chair of NOAA’s Hydrographic Services Review Panel, was the PI/manager of the Coastal Data Information Program, past PI/executive director of the Southern California Coastal Ocean Observing System, and a charter member of QARTOD Project.

Christoph Waldmann - waldmann@marum.de

Christoph, Senior Scientist at the University of Bremen (MARUM), is the past chair of the German Strategy Group on Ocean Observatories and a member of the GEO Blue Planet Steering Group. He is a current member of the expert team on WMO and IOC information systems, the national representative to the International Organization for Standardization technical committee 8 sub-committee 13 (marine technology standardization), and a past member of the Belmont Forum Steering Committee on E-Infrastructures. He joined the QARTOD BOA in 2018.