Eric

Eric Powell - Director
Eric Powell has been a research oceanographer for the past 20 years at Texas A & M and Rutgers University and is presently the Director of the Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory. Over that time, Powell has published over 100 articles in refereed journals and has averaged more than 2 major oceanographic cruises per year during which he has routinely served as chief scientist. Powell is the leader or co-leader of several national programs including SSETI, the biological component of NS & T Mussel Watch, and the MMS Chemosynthesis study. He has taken part in a number of other large sampling programs including GOOMEX (Gulf of Mexico Offshore Operations Monitoring Experiment) and numerous geological and biological surveys of the Gulf of Mexico shelf and slope.

Powell has considerable experience in shellfish physiology and parasite/disease processes and in numerical modeling and statistical analysis. He has conducted a wide variety of research programs in shellfish reproduction and growth, using experimental, observational and modeling approaches. The oyster population dynamics model developed by Powell (and coworkers at ODU) is the only peer-reviewed model of its type in the world and has been used in the USACE Houston Ship Channel Project, the USACE Delaware Bay Ship Channel Project, and the NOAA ODR program. It is presently being applied to the case of Korean oyster culture in an international program with Cheju University. Powell helped found a cooperative RU/VIMS/NEFSC/industry clam (Spisula, Arctica) research program in 1995 which has now been expanded to include the Illex squid fishery, and he is the present director of the New Jersey State Aquaculture Program which focuses on research and development of oyster, hard clam, and conch aquaculture.