2021 2021: Associate Professor of Fisheries Oceanography named a Cooperative Institute for the North Atlantic Region (CINAR) Fellow

Gavin Fay was honored by CINAR for his work on sustainable fisheries management

The Cooperative Institute for the North Atlantic Region (CINAR) recently announced five new Quantitative Fisheries and Ecosystems Science Fellows, including Associate Professor Gavin Fay (Fisheries Oceanography). CINAR, which is led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, is a consortium of research institutions focused on the marine ecosystem in the North Atlantic. CINAR also works closely with the federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Fay was chosen for this important fellowship due to his research that utilizes statistical and mathematical models for better ecosystem-based decision making for fisheries and oceans. As a Fellow, he is interested in both developing new methods for statistical modeling, fisheries assessment, and ecosystem-based management; and, how open data science tools can empower communication of scientific results for application to management and policy.

“I’m thankful to receive this award and support from CINAR, NEFSC, and the NOAA QUEST program. The fellowship will help us expand and strengthen the School for Marine Science and Technology’s collaborations with NOAA NEFSC to provide the science (and future workforce) that will support decisions to manage our oceans and fisheries and help sustain thriving coastal communities in the face of regional and global change,” said Fay.

According to CINAR, “The goal of the fellowship program is to engage early-career scientists in research that supports the training and education of the next generation of stock assessment scientists, ecosystem scientists, and economists, and that improves the assessment and management of living marine resources in the Northeast U.S.”

The CINAR fellowship will allow Fay to provide training workshops in quantitative fisheries science at the School for Marine Science and Technology (SMAST) for students from CINAR partner institutions. This opportunity will help connect UMassD students with their regional peer network and agency staff. As a fellow, Fay will also lead a national skills-based conference in quantitative fisheries science, to be targeted towards students at institutions that do not have academic training programs in these methods, to increase the national capability for applying the interdisciplinary advice needed to sustain oceans and fisheries.

“I’m excited that these activities will engage our students with hands-on learning of state-of-the-art statistical methods and decision support tools and have them interact and learn with their peers at the other CINAR institutions in the Northeast, stated Fay. “I’m humbled to join this cohort of fellows; Drs Cullen, Nesslage, Stoll, and Wiedenmann are all excellent fisheries scientists and educators. Looking forward to working with them all.”

Members of CINAR include the UMass Dartmouth School for Marine Science and Technology (SMAST), the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, Rutgers University, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, University of Maryland Eastern Shore, University of Maine, and the University of Rhode Island.

At SMAST, Fay teaches courses in statistics, ecological population modeling, science communication, and Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management. He currently serves on the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council's Scientific and Statistical Committee, as well as the New England Fishery Management Council's Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management Plan Development Team. He is a scientific advisory NETwork member for Eating with the Ecosystem, a local nonprofit organization working to promote a place-based approach to sustaining New England's wild seafood.