Lance Garrison, Ph.D.

Lance Garrison, Ph.D. is a Research Fishery Biologist for the NOAA Fisheries' Southeast Fisheries Science Center located in Miami, Florida. Lance received his Ph.D. from the College of William and Mary in 1997 and worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in the Food Web Dynamics program for 3 years. He joined the Southeast Fisheries Science Center Protected Resources and Biodiversity Division (now the Marine Mammal and Turtle Division) in 2001. Lance's research focuses on the population dynamics and spatial ecology of marine mammals in the Southeastern Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. He has led marine mammal stock assessments and has served as principal investigator on numerous large vessel and aerial line transect surveys, analyzing data to estimate abundance and trends in marine mammal populations, developing species distribution models and habitat maps, and assessing the level of mortality and serious injury due to commercial fisheries. His work also includes a focus on North Atlantic right whales, in particular assessing the risk of mortality due to vessel strikes along the U.S. East Coast. During the Deepwater Horizon Natural Resources and Damage Assessment, he was co-lead of the team that developed the injury assessment for estuarine, coastal, and oceanic marine mammals and is involved in several ongoing DWH restoration projects. He also co-leads research on the critically endangered Rice's whale with a focus on habitat use and trophic ecology. He is author or co-author on 80+ peer reviewed publications and over 50 technical reports.