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We work with a group of coastal and collaborative research experts and leverage their expertise to inform different aspects of the program, as noted beside their name.

Tina Anderson Smith

Tina Anderson Smith

Guiding Program Evaluation

Tina has 25 years’ experience in complex system change evaluation, strategy, program design, and facilitation, as both a consultant and a practitioner. She specializes in “realist” and developmental evaluation approaches, as well as systems thinking and adaptive learning.

Betsy Blair

Betsy Blair

Chair of Advisory Board

Betsy Blair chairs the NERRS Science Collaborative Advisory Board. She has 35 years' experience leading coastal habitat protection initiatives, advancing public policy, and developing collaborative science teams, including many years as manager of the Hudson River National Estuarine Research Reserve.

Troy Hartley

Troy Hartley

Designing Collaborative Research Training

Dr. Troy Hartley is director of Virginia Sea Grant (VASG) and a research professor of Marine Science & Policy at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science and the William & Mary Public Policy Program. He is a public policy scholar and his research considers collaborative governance networks and processes, stakeholder attitudes, perceptions and opinions, and change management in communities, particularly in coastal, marine and fisheries contexts.

Maria Carmen Lemos

Maria Carmen Lemos

Understanding Drivers of Usability

Maria Carmen Lemos, a political scientist, focuses on qualitative and quantitative understanding of the processes of producing and using science with the goal of increasing the usability of scientific knowledge in decision-making. She is working with the NERRS network on enhancing the generation of usable information.

Dwayne Porter

Dwayne Porter

Supporting Data Sharing

Dwayne Porter directs the activities of the NERRS Centralized Data Management Office (CDMO), located in Georgetown, SC. His research interests include exploring and expanding the increasingly important roles that technology and technological innovations play in monitoring, assessing, modeling and managing our coastal environmental resources and associated environmental and public health issues.

Julia Wondolleck

Julia Wondolleck

Support for Collaborative Research Approaches

Julia Wondolleck has nearly 25 years’ experience in understanding and training related to collaborative approaches for managing complex natural resource planning processes. She is adding to the collaborative training aspects of the Science Collaborative program.