NOAA Fisheries has two new supervisors for its Alaska bottom trawl surveys: Duane Stevenson for the Bering Sea survey; and Ned Laman for the Gulf of Alaska/Aleutian Islands survey.
Stevenson is a research fishery biologist whose expertise is in taxonomy and evolutionary relationships of marine fish. His research focuses on the identification and distribution of fish in Alaska’s marine ecosystems.
Stevenson has also worked with the North Pacific Groundfish Observer Program, training observers to identify fish and invertebrates for over two decades. He also designs and implements quality control measures and analyzes patterns in fishery-dependent and fishery-independent distribution data.
Laman has been part of the Gulf of Alaska-Aleutian Islands bottom trawl group for over 18 years, coordinating and leading annual surveys in Alaska, while researching fish ecology, species distribution and essential fish habitat. Before that, he worked as an environmental consultant doing impact studies at coastal power plants in the California Current system.