Kelly Gleason is the maritime heritage coordinator for Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. Following an undergraduate degree at the University of Notre Dame, Kelly pursued a master's in Nautical Archaeology at St. Andrews University in Scotland and a Doctorate at East Carolina University in North Carolina. In 2004, she began working for the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries in Honolulu, Hawaii as part of the Pacific Islands Region and became the maritime archaeologist for the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in the fall of 2007. In addition to her experience working on sites in the Main and Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, she has worked on shipwreck sites in Scotland, North Carolina, Northern California, the Great Lakes and the Caribbean. Kelly enjoys diving really deep, swimming really far and playing lacrosse in Kapiolani Park.

Alysia Curdts
Maritime Archaeologist/Diver

Alysia Curdts is a recent graduate of anthropology from the University of Hawaii. She initially became interested in the history and preservation of maritime heritage through diving in the wreck laden Atlantic off the coast of New Jersey. She has participated in multiple diving and archaeology field schools including QUEST (Quantitative Underwater Ecological Surveying Techniques) and most recently MAST (Maritime Archaeological Surveying Techniques) under the instruction of NOAA’s maritime heritage coordinator for the ONMS Pacific Islands Region, Dr. Hans Van Tilburg. Alysia will assist maritime archaeologists in their continued research and surveying of maritime resources in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands. She hopes to continue her academic journey with a graduate program in Pacific and maritime studies.

Anne Rosinski
Biologist

Anne Rosinski is a research technician for the University of Hawaii’s Marine Mammal Research Program. In 2008, she earned a BS in Environmental Science from the University of Michigan where she focused on Tropical Marine Ecology and Conservation. Anne arrived in Hawaii soon after graduation and began assisting with several conservation projects, including monitoring Hawksbill turtles with the National Park Service in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, and collecting human use data from Waikiki’s beaches with the University of Hawaii’s Sea Grant Program. She has been at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology since May 2009 where she works under Dr. Lammers and Dr. Whit Au in marine bioacoustics using Ecological Acoustic Recorders (EARs), an instrument that records underwater sound. Her role on this expedition to Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument is to deploy and refurbish EARs that will detect the acoustic presence of marine mammals, fish, and other marine monument inhabitants.

Aulani Hall
Scientific Support

Aulani Hall is from Kane‘ohe, O’ahu and recently completed her undergraduate degree in Business Management at the University of Phoenix. Since June 2007, she serves as an Administrative/Fiscal Assistant with Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, and is primarily responsible for providing administrative and fiscal support to the Monument staff. She also assists the Monument in their Native Hawaiian programs. Her interests include paddling and serving as a member of Papaku no Kameha`ikana, a non-profit founded in 2005 that supports other agencies or organizations that educate and coordinate native Hawaiian activities.

Carl Meyer, PhD
Biologist/Diver

Carl Meyer is an Assistant Researcher at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology where he conducts research on the behavioral ecology and sensory systems of sharks and fishes. He has a Masters degree in marine biology from University of Plymouth (England) and a Ph.D. in Zoology from University of Hawaii. Carl is using electronic (telemetry) tags to study the movements of sharks and other predatory fishes in Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.

Christian Clark
Biologist/Diver

Christian entered the Global Environmental Science program in SOEST in the spring of 2006. He plans to graduate with a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Summer 2010. He is currently working with Craig Smith on his undergraduate thesis to understand how seafloor megafaunal abundance, community structure, and biodiversity vary along a strong latitudinal sea ice gradient on the Western Antarctic Peninsula continental shelf. While the majority of Christian’s recent work has focused on deep-sea benthic systems, he has also spent a significant amount of time working and volunteering in the Holland Shark Lab at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology over the last five years.

Derek Smith
Biologist/Diver

Derek Smith currently oversees the scientific diving and boating operations for HIMB on Coconut Island. He is also completing his Master of Science in the Zoology department at the University of Hawaii studying the biological communities associated with submerged cultural resources. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Marine Biology from UC Santa Cruz and has studied the coastal marine ecology of kelp forests and coral reefs for more than a decade. He has been the Diving Safety Officer for major university scientific programs as well as non-profit research and education organizations and specializes in logisitics management in remote settings. He is a NAUI Instructor Trainer, teaches technical rebreather courses and hyperbaric operations, and is a nationally-registered Diving Medical Technician. He has served as the President of the Association of Dive Program Administrators, as a Research Advisory Committee Member for the Marine Conservation Research Institute, and on the Standards Committee for the American Academy of Underwater Sciences. He is also a Research Associate with RPM Nautical Foundation and has been accepted into the PhD program in the Biology department at the University of Washington for this Fall.

Jason Burns
Maritime Archaeologist/Remote Sensing Specialist

Jason Burns has over 15 years of experience and has been with Southeastern Archaeological Research, Inc. (SEARCH) since 2006 and serves as a Project Manager and Principal Investigator within the Maritime Division. Mr. Burns is a Navy veteran who graduated from the University of Florida with his B.A. in Anthropology in 1996. After working for SEARCH as a field technician, he continued his education at the University of West Florida (UWF), where he took his M.A. in History/Historical Archeology, specializing in underwater archeology, in 2000. While in graduate school, he worked on the 1997/98 excavations of the 16th-century Emanuel Point ship in Pensacola before focusing his thesis on a Norwegian shipwreck and its socio-economic links with Pensacola’s historic Norwegian community. His thesis, The Life and Times of a Merchant Sailor: The Archaeology and History of the Norwegian Ship Catharine, was subsequently published in the Plenum Series in Underwater Archaeology in 2003. Upon graduating from UWF, Mr. Burns worked as an archeologist on the CSS Hunley recovery off Charleston, South Carolina before moving to St. Augustine to work for the Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program (LAMP). From 2000-2003, Mr. Burns served as LAMP’s Director of Conservation and participated in all facets of the underwater archeology program. During this time, he was fortunate to assist on the 2002 CSS Alabama project off Cherbourg, France. Most recently, Mr. Burns served as the first underwater archeologist hired by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. He was charged with creating a statewide program for underwater archeology, and he ended his tenure in the position of Deputy State Archeologist - Underwater. Mr. Burns’ professional research has focused on submerged cultural resources management and public education, while his personal research focuses on 19th-century merchant fleets and their transition from sail to steam and the expansion of world commerce by shipping nations after 1850.

Jason Raupp
Maritime Archaeologist/Diver

Jason Raupp is a PhD student at Flinders University in South Australia and is researching historic whaling in Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. He holds a B.A. in Anthropology from Northwestern State University and an M.A. in History and Historical Archaeology from the University of West Florida. He has worked on terrestrial and maritime archaeological projects in the US, Africa, Australia, Asia and the Pacific. Jason is a Research Associate in the Department of Archaeology at Flinders University, a councilor for the Australasian Institute of Maritime Archaeology (AIMA) and the State Tutor for AIMA & Nautical Archaeology Society’s Maritime Archaeology Training Program.

Jonathan Dale
Biologist/Diver

Jonathan Dale was born and raised in New York where he got an undergraduate degree in Marine Biology at Southampton College. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D at the University of Hawai‘i. His research focuses on the life history, ecology and bioenergetics of the brown stingray, Dasyatis lata, in Hawai‘i. He also has interests in the movement patterns and habitat use of sharks and other top predators.

Megan Donahue, PhD
Biologist/Diver

Dr. Megan Donahue studies the spatial population dynamics of marine organisms from corals to crabs to fish. She completed her doctoral work in ecology at UC Davis in 2003 and joined the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology in 2008. On this cruise, she’s working with the PMNM’s invasive species manager to develop effective surveys for the detection and management of introduced species in the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.

Michael Krivor
Maritime Archaeologist/Remote Sensing Specialist

Michael C. Krivor, M.A. serves as a Project Manager and Principal Investigator with the SEARCH Maritime Division. In 1990, Mr. Krivor received his B.A. degree in Aquatic Archaeology from Humboldt State University in Arcata, California and in 1998 he received his M.A. from the Program in Maritime History and Nautical Archaeology at East Carolina University. His academic research focused on shipwreck investigations along the east coast of the United States, Bermuda, and the Dominican Republic, and his thesis centered on the investigation of an 18th century British Transport that foundered off Bermuda during the American Revolution. In 1996, Mr. Krivor began professional work as a maritime archaeologist, and has served on over 130 SCRM projects, authored over 73 reports, and presented 20 professional papers. Proficient in all aspects of underwater archaeology, Mr. Krivor’s specialties include 18th-19th century New World ship construction, Western River steamboat construction, Civil War wreck sites, and small vernacular craft construction. He also has years of experience in remote sensing survey, data analysis, and archaeological site layout, scaled mapping, and measured sketching and photography. Mr. Krivor is on the Register of Professional Archaeologists (RPA) and has been certified by the US Army Corps of Engineers, Dive Safety Program. Michael Krivor’s qualifications exceed those set forth by the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards and Guidelines for Archaeology and Historic Preservation (48 FR 44716-42).

Nyssa Silbiger
Biologist/Diver

Nyssa Silbiger is a graduate student at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa in Dr. Megan Donahue’s lab. Nyssa, born and raised in south Florida, grew up snorkeling and SCUBA diving on coral reefs in the Florida Keys. She received a B.S. in Biology at Florida State University and a M.S. in Marine Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Presently, her research interests include community ecology of bioeroding organisms on coral reefs and ecological modeling. Her role in this Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument expedition is to assist in conducting ecological surveys for the maritime archeology team.

Sarah Harris
NOAA Corps Officer

Born in Mississippi and raised in Arizona Sarah has found her way to the ocean via Long Island University in Southampton. As an officer in the NOAA Corps her land billet is now Marine Operations Coordinator for the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. Her duties include managing all small boats for the Monument and insuring everyone is safe and qualified as operators and passengers. Sarah has successfully completed one underway mission with the Monument as a small boat coxswain on the fall 2009 RAMP cruise.

Scott Godwin
Biologist/Diver

Scott Godwin’s professional interests range from aquatic alien species ecology to marine invertebrate taxonomy and biogeography. As a marine invertebrate zoologist he has conducted extensive surveys throughout the tropical Pacific under the auspices of coral reef monitoring and marine alien species projects. He has been working in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands for over a decade and is the Resource Protection Specialist for the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument (PMNM). In his present position at the PMNM he is involved in marine alien species management focusing on anthropogenic transportation vectors and invasion ecology throughout the archipelago.