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The EcoFish Seafood Advisory Board is comprised of some of the world's leading marine conservation scientists. Each Advisory Board member's organization is actively involved in assessing the environmental effects of fisheries and aquaculture. The Board members donate their time, vast knowledge and expertise assisting EcoFish in selecting among the world's most environmentally sustainable fisheries.
The Advisory Board is entirely independent of EcoFish and Board members are not compensated by EcoFish in any way. They contribute their time to help further our common goal of protecting our oceans by providing concerned consumers with sustainable seafood choices.
Seafood Advisory Board
Michael Sutton
Carl Safina
Matthew Elliott
Rebecca Goldburg, Ph.D.
George Leonard, Ph.D.
Heather Tausig
 Michael Sutton serves as Vice President of the Monterey Bay Aquarium and directs a new program known as the Center for the Future of the Oceans. The mission of the Center is to inspire action for conservation of the oceans. The Center will work to achieve lasting marine conservation outcomes by empowering individuals and influencing policy, focusing on initiatives where the Aquarium can make a unique and valued contribution. Previously, Sutton headed the Marine Fisheries Program at the David & Lucile Packard Foundation in Los Altos, California, the largest private funder of ocean conservation efforts in North America. Earlier, Mr. Sutton founded and directed World Wildlife Fund’s Endangered Seas Campaign, a global effort to promote the conservation and sustainable use of marine fisheries.
In the United States, Mr. Sutton has served as a senior advisor to the Secretary of Commerce and the Secretary of State on marine fishery issues, sitting on two Federal Advisory Committees. He was a founding member of the national steering committees of both the Marine Fish Conservation Network and the Ocean Wildlife Campaign, the latter an international coalition working to conserve large pelagic fishes such as sharks, tuna, and swordfish. He has lectured at graduate seminars on marine conservation policy at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Stanford, Tufts, George Washington University, and the University of Rhode Island.
Mr. Sutton joined WWF in 1990 to work on international wildlife policy issues. In 1992, he was appointed Vice President responsible for the U.S. Land & Wildlife Program. In 1995, he accepted a temporary assignment with WWF International to launch WWF's global Endangered Seas Campaign. In 1996, Mr. Sutton formed a business/environment partnership with Unilever, the world’s largest buyer of frozen fish. Together, WWF and Unilever co-founded the Marine Stewardship Council to harness market forces and consumer power in favor of sustainable fisheries.
Before joining the WWF staff, Mr. Sutton served as a special agent with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and as a park ranger with the National Park Service in Yosemite, Yellowstone, Biscayne, and Virgin Islands National Parks and Death Valley National Monument. He received a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Utah State University in 1978 and pursued graduate studies in marine biology at the University of Sydney, Australia. His research involved the behavioral ecology of coral reef fishes on the Great Barrier Reef. In 1992, he received a law degree in international and natural resources law from George Washington University's National Law Center in Washington, D.C.
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 Carl Safina grew up loving the ocean and its creatures. His childhood
by the sea led him into scientific studies of seabirds and fish,
and to his doctorate in Ecology from Rutgers University.
During his research and his recreational and part-time-commercial
fishing, he noticed rapid declines in white marlin, sharks, tunas
and other fishes, and sea turtles. It seemed to him as though a
kind of last buffalo hunt was occurring in the sea. This motivated
him to become a voice for the conservation and restoration of life
in the oceans. Since then, Dr. Safina, born in 1955, has worked
to put ocean fish conservation issues into the wildlife conservation
mainstream. He has helped lead campaigns to ban high-seas driftnets,
re-write and reform federal fisheries law in the U. S., use international
agreements toward restoring depleted populations of tunas, sharks,
and other fishes, and achieve passage of a United Nations global
fisheries treaty. In 1990 he founded the Living Oceans Program
at the National Audubon Society, where he served for a decade as
vice president for ocean conservation.
He is now president of Blue Ocean Institute, which he co-founded
in 2003. Blue Ocean Institute's main focus is using science,
art, and literature to inspire a "sea ethic"—a
closer relationship with the sea.
Safina is author of more than a hundred scientific and popular
publications on ecology and oceans, including a new Foreword to
Rachel Carson's The Sea Around Us. His first book, Song
for the Blue Ocean, was chosen a New York Times Notable
Book of the Year, a Los Angeles Times Best Nonfiction
selection, and a Library Journal Best Science Book selection;
it won him the Lannan Literary Award for nonfiction. He is also
author of Eye of the Albatross, which won the John Burroughs
Medal for nature writing and was chosen by the National Academies
of Science, Engineering and Medicine as the year's best book
for communicating science. Safina is also co-author of the Seafood
Lover's Almanac.
He has been profiled in the New York Times and on Nightline,
named among "100 Notable Conservationists of the 20th Century" by Audubon magazine,
and featured on the Bill Moyers PBS special "Earth on Edge." He
is a visiting fellow at Yale University and adjunct full professor
at Long Island University and at SUNY at Stony Brook. Safina is
an elected member of The Explorers Club, a recipient of the Pew
Scholar's Award in Conservation and the Environment, a World Wildlife
Fund Senior Fellow, and winner of a MacArthur Fellowship.
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 Mr. Elliott is the Conservation Director of Sea Change Management, LLC and an Associate at the consulting firm California Environmental Associates. As the Conservation Director at Sea Change, Mr. Elliott seeks to make investments in progressive companies, such as EcoFish, that promote market access to seafood from environmentally-preferable sources. Prior to joining Sea Change Management, Mr. Elliott served as a senior research associate at Redefining Progress, a progressive think tank focused on sustainability. Additionally, he has worked and consulted for several groups active in ocean conservation issues including Natural Resources Defense Council, Seaweb, Monterey Bay Aquarium, Redefining Progress and the Pew Oceans Commission. In each of these roles, Mr. Elliott was responsible for forming recommendations on the environmental effects of different fishery and aquaculture practices.
Mr. Elliott holds a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard University (summa cum laude) and a Master of Science with distinction in Environmental Change and Management from Oxford University.
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 Rebecca Goldburg is Director of Marine Science at the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Environment Group, where she is responsible for marine science funding, the Pew Fellows Program in Marine Conservation, and related activities.
Before joining Pew in October 2008, Goldburg was a senior scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, a national nonprofit research and advocacy organization where she worked for twenty years. One of Goldburg’s major focuses was scientific and public policy issues concerning fish farming, especially issues concerning the massive use of wild caught fish in feed for farmed fish. Goldburg also worked to increase market demand for more sustainably produced seafood, including through partnerships with several major corporate purchasers of seafood.
Goldburg served on the Marine Aquaculture Task Force, established by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Pew Charitable Trusts, which released recommendations concerning US aquaculture policy in January 2007. An author of numerous articles, Goldburg coauthored the Pew Oceans Commission's report on marine aquaculture. Goldburg’s past service also includes the Advisory Board to the Henry Luce Foundation’s Environment Program, the National Academy of Science's Committee on Genetically Modified Pest-Protected Crops and the USDA National Organic Standards Board.
Dr. Goldburg has an A.B. in Statistics from Princeton University as well as an M.S. in Statistics, a Ph.D. in Ecology and Behavioral Biology, and an honorary Doctorate of Laws, all from the University of Minnesota
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George Leonard is the newly-appointed Director of Aquaculture for Ocean Conservancy where his goal is to ensure that U.S. aquaculture develops under strong environmental standards. In particular, his work is currently focused on legislative activities surrounding the development of open ocean aquaculture in state and federal waters.
For the previous five years, he was the Senior Science Manager for Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program where he was responsible for overseeing the research and analysis of capture fisheries and aquaculture practices related to the development of sustainability recommendations for the public and businesses. These recommendations were presented in the form of regional, wallet-sized pocket guides for consumers as well as sourcing guidance for major seafood buyers.
George holds a Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology from Brown University and a MS in Marine Science from Moss Landing Marine Laboratories. Before joining Seafood Watch in early 2002, he was the Program Manager for COMPASS (the Communication Partnership for Science and the Sea) where he helped communicate emerging marine conservation science to policymakers, NGOs and resource managers.
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 Based at the New England Aquarium for almost 15 years, Heather is responsible for all programs and staff within the Conservation Department. She is the senior director of the New England Aquarium’s sustainable seafood programs, which aim to protect the world’s ocean resources by raising public awareness and working with the seafood industry to advance sustainable practices within wild-capture fisheries and aquaculture operations. These programs include the Celebrate Seafood initiative, which profiles ocean-friendly seafood options in many public venues including the website, exhibits and events, and Sustainable Seafood Advisory Services, an innovative market-based approach to advising companies on sustainable seafood issues and facilitating proactive changes along their supply chains to favor marine conservation.
Over the past 15 years, Heather has also co-organized 8 large-scale and numerous small-scale fisheries forums and workshops. She is a senior producer of the Aquarium’s World of Water (WOW) conservation films which provide viewers with both an educational and inspirational experience as they learn about ocean conservation issues. Heather also oversees the coordination of grant requests and serves on the board for the Marine Conservation Action Fund—a unique re-granting program that aims to protect and promote ocean biodiversity by supporting small-scale, time-sensitive, community-based projects around the world.
She currently serves on the Advisory Board for EcoFish and the University of New Hampshire’s Large Pelagics Research Center, as well as the Food Marketing Institute's Sustainable Seafood Working Group's Advisory Council. Heather received her master’s degree in International Relations and Energy and Environmental Studies from Boston University.
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