Plenary Speakers for the 119^th Annual Meeting of the NSA

The NSF Seafood Engine in New England: Bringing Technological Innovation to America’s Oldest Industry

Jake Kritzer is the CEO of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Seafood Engine in New England, a nascent innovation ecosystem focused on bringing technological innovation to the oldest commercial enterprise in the nation. The Seafood Engine is hosted by the Northeastern Regional Association of Coastal Ocean Observing Systems, or NERACOOS, for which Jake previously served as Executive Director from 2020-2026. Prior to joining NERACOOS, he held a series of progressively senior positions with the Environmental Defense Fund focused on fisheries science and policy in the U.S., Cuba, China, and elsewhere. Jake has served as Chair of the New England Fishery Management Council’s Scientific & Statistical Committee and Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Habitat Committee; as a Conservation Commissioner for the City of Boston and the Town of Durham, New Hampshire; on the Boards of Directors of the Alewife Harvesters of Maine, Blue Ocean Society for Marine Conservation, and IOOS Association; and a number of other technical, advisory, and regulatory appointments. The author of more than 50 peer-reviewed publications, he earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Middlebury College in Vermont and a Ph.D. in marine biology from James Cook University in Australia, and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Windsor in Canada. Jake lives in the seacoast of New Hampshire with his wife, two daughters, and three dogs, where he enjoys running, hiking, cycling, skiing, and paddling.

 Cephalopods as Shellfish: A Different Route

Jennifer Mather grew up on the coast, in Victoria, BC, where she spent a lot of time exploring the intertidal, including building a shell collection.  The experience led her to become a mollusc scientist, but also to study the whole animal, particularly watching in the field.  Behaviour became her focus and the octopuses because they had the most interesting behaviour.  She did a Master’s at Florida State University, but moved to Brandeis and Psychology to find an expert on octopus behaviour.  When this didn’t work out, she got a Doctorate in human sensory-motor coordination. She kept a dual interest through a Canadian five-year University Research Fellowship award. When she moved to University of Lethbridge, she continued teaching Psychology courses but gradually completely focused her research on cephalopods.  True to her initial direction, she did observational field work on octopus behaviour in Bermuda, northern Florida, Hawaii, British Colombia, Okinawa, and Moorea.  A search to discover whether squid made a visual language on their skin took her also to Bonaire in the Caribbean.  She teamed up with Roland Anderson at the Seattle Aquarium to conduct lab studies, including octopus personalities, problem solving and play.  This last led her to more theoretical work on cognition and consciousness in cephalopods. Along the way she became concerned with welfare, particularly of cephalopods, but also all invertebrates, editing Welfare of Invertebrates with Claudio Carere. Her latest venture is a book on Lives of Marine Animals, expected to come out in Cambridge University Press in early 2027.

Truitt’s Legacy: How Our Understanding of the Chesapeake has Changed Over 90 years

Thomas Miller is a professor of fisheries science and former Director of the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory in Solomons, the founding campus of Maryland University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.  He has been a leader in the development of approaches to manage several Chesapeake Bay species, including blue crab and menhaden, combining laboratory, field, and modeling approaches to address questions of interest to society. Most recently, his research has focused on the effects of climate change on oyster and blue crab, recruitment issues in menhaden and striped bass and stakeholder involvement in recreational fisheries.  Dr. Miller serves on the Scientific and Statistical Committee for the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council. Miller also serves as scientific advisor to the Potomac River Fisheries Commission. He served on the US National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine’s Ocean Studies Board, and on the US National Committee for the UN Decade for Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. In 2026 Miller was elected a Fellow of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom.  Previously, Miller was made an Admiral of the Chesapeake Bay by Maryland Governor Wes Moore. He has been the recipient of the President’s Award for the Application of Science at UMCES and received the USM Regents’ Faculty Award for Public Service, the highest honor that the Board bestows to recognize exemplary faculty achievement. Miller holds a B.Sc. degree from the University of York in England, and completed his Master’s in ecology and Ph.D. in zoology at North Carolina State University. He was a post-doctoral fellow at McGill University, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Lessons Learned from a Decade Communicating Marine Science to the Public

David Shiffman is an interdisciplinary marine conservation biologist and science communication specialist based in Washington, DC. His more than 60 peer reviewed articles on conservation policy and science communication have been cited over 2,500 times, and his public-facing words have appeared in National Geographic, Scientific American, the Washington Post, nationally-syndicated op-eds, and a monthly column in SCUBA diving magazine. He is the author of "Why Sharks Matter" from Johns Hopkins University Press, and when it came out he arranged an international speaking tour with stops in more than 80 cities. He is one of the most-followed scientists in the world on social media, and has trained over 3,000 early career academics how to use online tools to communicate their science, including at several past NSA meetings. He invites you to follow him @WhySharksMatter where he's always happy to answer questions about marine biology, ocean conservation, or sharks.