Taking the helm at marine lab
Penngrove man hopes to expand Bodega Head site's research despite budget woes
New Bodega Marine Laboratory director Gary Cherr, right, work s earlier this week with a laser microscope on herring reproduction with professor Ryuzo Yanagimachi from the University of Hawaii and professor Murali Pilai of Sonoma State.
JOHN BURGESS/ PDPublished: Thursday, January 14, 2010 at 4:03 a.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, January 14, 2010 at 4:03 a.m.
A longtime Bodega Marine Laboratory professor and researcher has taken over as director of the facility, which during the past decade has become one of the top schools for study of the ocean and coastal environment and ecology.
"I want to grow the lab further; it's headed in the right direction," said Gary Cherr, 53, of Penngrove. "The lab is addressing the complex environmental issues for the state and globally."
Susan Williams, 58, of Bodega Bay, has stepped down after 10 years as director of the lab, which is situated on a bluff overlooking the ocean at Bodega Head. She will remain at the lab as a professor and researcher.
"It is always good to have fresh blood at an educational institution," Williams said. "And I'm a scientist, and it was increasingly difficult for me to do research."
"The lab director is the mouthpiece for scientific research and scientific findings for the lab," Williams said.
Much of the current research revolves around climate change, such as using deep sea corals as records for measuring climate change and how it is affecting the distribution of marine organisms off the coast.
There is also research on the increase of the acid levels in the ocean and its effect on oysters and other organisms and the changes in offshore currents caused by climate change and that effect on ocean life.
Cherr said the lab's direction will not change.
"We will continue focusing on solving or addressing complex environmental problems," Cherr said. "Climate change is right up there, pollution, oil spills, invasive species, new diseases in ocean organisms . . . ocean energy, wave energy, is something the lab is poised to address."
Cherr said because of the state's financial crisis, the lab's budget has been cut 20 percent this year, to $1.5 million. It has meant that several retirees are not being replaced, the staff is required to take mandatory time off without pay, and outside seminars have been cut from 12 months to nine.
"We have been running lean and doing without things," Cherr said.
At the same time, the amount of money the lab receives from state and federal agencies for research, $7 million, is 30 percent more than last year because of an increase in federal research money.
Those funds can only be used for research, not for such things as building maintenance, the salaries of office staff or operating the saltwater distribution system to the labs.
One of those grants, $240,000, is from the National Science Foundation to convert four rooms into sealed chambers in which the atmosphere can be controlled to imitate climate change.
Scientists will be able to introduce variables, such as heightened carbon dioxide levels, to approximate what global warming would do and calculate the effects on marine organisms.
The lab has also received a $2.7 million grant from the National Science Foundation for a five-year program to put eight graduate students into the Sonoma County schools to bolster science programs.
Cherr said he will make about $130,000 a year in his dual role as director and professor.
"This is special place, it is unique, and we are lucky to work here," Cherr said. "When I was asked to take over, to me it was an honor . . . this is a tough time to take any leadership role, with the budget problems, but I thought I could step in and keep things working at a high level."
Williams said she accomplished what she and UC Davis, which runs the lab, had set out to do when she became the lab's director in 2000.
She said that the size of the graduate and undergraduate program has doubled, now serving 250 graduate students and 1,200 undergraduate students, who are housed in the lab's dormitory complex.
The lab hired four new professors to do research on such environmental issues as measuring climate change and its effects on marine organisms, ocean acidification and its affect on shellfish and ocean currents.
"When I was recruited, UC Davis had advertised for a marine ecology position. It felt that with this kind of setting, the lab should be working more outdoors and in the environment," Williams said. "That became a focus and now it is what we are known for."
The lab acquired a research vessel, the 42-foot Mussel Point, and formalized an agreement to have two researchers from state Fish and Game housed at the lab.
The lab has also forged relationships with the Coastal Conservancy, the Pacific Legislative Task Force on Fisheries, the Sonoma County Water Agency and other local groups.bob.norberg@pressdemocrat.
com.
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