Vladlena Gertseva, Ph.D.

Background

Dr. Vladlena (Vlada) Gertseva is a stock assessment scientist with the NOAA Northwest Fisheries Science Center. Prior to joining NOAA, Vlada worked as a professor at Oregon State University, teaching quantitative fisheries classes for the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife. Vlada received her B.Sc. in Biology at Yaroslavl State University in Russia. She received her M.Sc. in Environmental Science at Central European University in Budapest, Hungary, after being awarded a fellowship from George Soros' Open Society Institute for her academic and research excellence.  She then completed her Ph.D. at Clemson University in Forest Resources. Her dissertation focused on modeling the dynamics of aquatic macroinvertebrate communities. As a postdoc, she worked on salmon ecology at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Oregon.

Vlada is an Associate Editor of the Elsevier journal Ecological Modelling, the leading international journal on modeling and analyses of systems and processes. She plays an active role in the stock assessment process internationally, has chaired multiple review panels and served as external expert on many others at the International Council for Exploration of the Sea (ICES) and Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO). Vlada is a former chair of the Groundfish Subcommittee of the Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC), within the Pacific Fishery Management Council, and served for many years on the SSC, to ensure that the best scientific information is used for fishery management on the U.S. West Coast. Vlada also actively collaborates with her academic colleagues and advises graduate students from the University of Washington and Oregon State University, specializing in aquatic and fisheries sciences.

Current Research

Vlada's research focus is on solving challenging analytical problems related to dynamics of fish populations in a complex and changing environment. Her current projects span from quantifying temporal and spatial variability in marine fish life history traits and integrating climate effects into stock assessment models, to uncovering historical impacts on groundfish stocks in the Pacific Ocean, with the ultimate goal of improving current assessment models. Vlada has conducted a number of stock assessments for West Coast groundfish species, including Spiny Dogfish Shark, Longnose Skate, Splitnose Rockfish, Darkblotched Rockfish and Yelloweye Rockfish; these assessments are now utilized as best scientific information for management advice.