Cate O’Keefe, a doctoral student at UMass Dartmouth’s School for Marine Science and Technology, won a Merit Award for best presentation at the 2009 annual science conference of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea. O’Keefe, 32, manages a collaborative scallop research program between city fishermen and SMAST scientists. Their research measures the size of the Atlantic sea scallop population, helping regulators design sustainable management practices.
"I explained how the industry was really involved in terms of designing the survey, where we should go, helping with getting the gear together and designed correctly. I showed where our stations have been over the last 10 years, how the survey works and the management applications that we get out of it. … The conclusion of it was that there have been continued benefits both for us and for the industry and for the resource as a whole."
"At times there has been sort of the idea that we are a little too friendly and maybe that our results could be biased. But it really hasn’t been that way. We have a strong relationship with them, clearly we have to, but there is no candy-coating the results. What we see is what we give them. Basically, you can’t hide it either, it is all on video."