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 is now an Associate Affiliate Professor at the University of Washington’s School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, where she teaches Applied Stock Assessment courses and advises graduate students. In the NWFSC, Vlada is leading the Internal Grant Program that supports high-quality research in support of NOAA Fisheries’ mission.

Current Research

Vlada has conducted numerous fisheries stock assessments for a wide array of West Coast groundfish species, including rockfish, flatfish and elasmobranch stocks. These assessments are now utilized to inform fisheries management in the Northeast Pacific Ocean.

Vlada's research focuses on solving challenging analytical questions related to dynamics of fish populations in a complex and changing environment. Her research projects span from quantifying temporal and spatial variability in marine fish life history traits, to integrating climate effects into stock assessment models, and uncovering historical impacts on groundfish stocks in the Pacific Ocean, with the ultimate goal of improving current assessment models.