Kathryn Ford

Director, Population and Ecosystems Monitoring and Analysis Division

Dr. Ford started her career in the Bahamas as a marine scientist teaching coral reef ecology. In graduate school she focused on geological oceanography and coastal ecosystems science. She started at the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries in 2005 where she ran the Fisheries Habitat Program. In her 15 years at DMF, her research focus was on seafloor mapping using acoustic and optical imagery. She has done extensive multi-disciplinary work on projects that addressed shoreline management, eelgrass, artificial reefs, and aquaculture. She was also involved in creating the first ocean plans for the northeast region and for Massachusetts, she was involved in the Omnibus Habitat Amendment 2 as a member of the New England Fishery Management Council Habitat PDT, and she was a charter representative on the Massachusetts Offshore Wind Task Force for offshore wind planning. She began her career at NOAA in 2021 as Chief of the Population and Ecosystems Monitoring and Analysis Division, a team of highly motivated scientists who collect and analyze data foundational to stock assessments and the monitoring and evaluation of climate change. Dr. Ford has a Ph.D. from the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography and a B. Sc. from the University of Rochester.