We’re excited to introduce you to two newest members of the SeaDoc Society’s Scientific Advisory Board—a crucial part of our work here in the Salish Sea. Before we properly introduce Sunny Jardine and Nicholas Georgiadis, let’s say farewell to three outgoing Science Advisors that have lent SeaDoc their expertise for a combined 50 years! Huge thanks from our whole team!
Peter Ross 2001-2022 (a founding Science Advisor!)
Christine Kreuder Johnson 2003-2022
Katherine (Trina) Wellman 2012-2022
We’re thrilled to welcome two new advisors who will join the rest of our team of brilliant scientists as we continue ahead with our mission to heal the Salish Sea through science and education.
Sunny Jardine
Sunny is an Associate Professor at the School of Marine and Environmental Affairs and a faculty member of Quantitative Ecology and Resource Management Interdisciplinary Graduate Program at the University of Washington.
Growing up in Hawaii on Oahu, the ocean has been a major influence on her since childhood. She cared about the environment and, growing up in a small town, could observe the difference between development and conservation of her natural surroundings. She knew she wanted to pursue that line of study, but her parents hadn’t attended college, so she didn’t quite have a road map.
“I went to Borders Books to see what college I should pick,” she said. “I chose a state school in Syracuse where I could focus on environment—environmental studies.”
She’d been thinking about deforestation in Costa Rica that was tied to changing development policies. She was interested in the impacts of development and how it related to economics—a tension that also exists in the Salish Sea and far beyond.
Prior to her role at UW, she was an Assistant Professor at the School of Marine Science and Policy at the University of Delaware and a faculty member with the Department of Applied Economics and Statistics.
Sunny will bring this expertise and more to SeaDoc’s Science Advisory Board.
Nick Georgiadis
Nick is a Senior Research Scientist with the Puget Sound Institute at the University of Washington.
He can’t remember a moment as a child in which he “decided” he wanted to be a scientist. From as early as he can remember, it’s just sort of what he did. So he just kept on learning.
“It was never really a choice,” said Nick, who was born in Kenya and always had a love for large mammals. “My resolve or interest just strengthened on its own.”
He followed his studies through Kings College at London University and then Syracuse in New York, which paved the way for his early career working with macrovertebrates. In 2009 he made his big move to the Pacific Northwest, which has been his home ever since.
Nick worked with SeaDoc Science Director Joe Gaydos on the Editorial Board for the Encyclopedia of Puget Sound. The two met during a science panel meeting for the Puget Sound Partnership and have crossed paths working on science and policy ever since.
His role with SeaDoc is like a window into his former life on the other side of the planet, working with large mammals in addition to the ecosystem as a whole.
We are honored to have Nick and Sunny on our Scientific Advisory Board.