Meet members of NOAA's Habitat Conservation Team and get better acquainted with their work. Explore the staff profiles below to learn more about their current projects and what they find meaningful about their role in conserving habitat.
Meet Stephanie Westby, Chesapeake Bay Oyster Restoration Program Manager for the NOAA Restoration Center
Stephanie grew up sailing on the Chesapeake Bay and grew to love all things water. Now, she supports large-scale oyster restoration projects on the estuary as the Chesapeake Bay Oyster Restoration Program Manager for the Office of Habitat Conservation’s Restoration Center.
Learn more about Stephanie's work
Meet Emily Mailman, Marine Habitat Resource Specialist for the NOAA Restoration Center
Emily Mailman is a Marine Habitat Resource Specialist based in Anchorage, Alaska. She supports the work of the Office of Habitat Conservation’s Restoration Center in Alaska.
Meet Lindsay French, Marine Habitat Resource Specialist for the NOAA Restoration Center
Lindsay French is a technical monitor for habitat restoration projects funded under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act in North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida
Read more about Lindsay's work
Meet John Barco, Marine Habitat Resource Specialist and Gulf of Mexico Team Lead for the NOAA Restoration Center
John supports NOAA’s Damage Assessment, Remediation, and Restoration Program to restore habitat in the Southeast.
Meet David Bruce, Ecologist
David Bruce is an Ecologist with the Office of Habitat Conservation's NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office in Oxford, Maryland. His work includes exploring how fish use restored habitat in the Chesapeake Bay and conducting habitat analysis to support large-scale oyster restoration.
Meet Krista McCraken, Marine Habitat Resource Specialist
Krista McCraken is a Marine Habitat Resource Specialist based in Charleston, South Carolina. She works to support habitat restoration and community resilience in the South Atlantic through the Office of Habitat Conservation’s Restoration Center.
Learn more about Krista's work
Meet our Summer 2024 Interns
The NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office hosts interns each summer. The interns gain valuable experience, and our office gets a great boost in our efforts to protect and restore the Chesapeake Bay.
Learn more about our NCBO interns' work
Meet Chemine Jackels, Marine Habitat Specialist
Chemine Jackels is a Marine Habitat Specialist based in Seattle, Washington, contracting for Earth Resources Technology, Inc. She works to support the Office of Habitat Conservation’s Restoration Center as a technical monitor for habitat restoration projects in the Pacific Northwest.
Learn more about Chemine's work
Meet Eric Weissberger, Deepwater Horizon Oyster Restoration Coordinator
Eric has been with NOAA since 2017, when he joined the Office of Habitat Conservation. He brings years of expertise as a shellfish biologist to his role as NOAA's oyster restoration coordinator in the Deepwater Horizon restoration program. He helps the five Gulf states and NOAA work together to rebuild oyster reefs in the Gulf of Mexico in the years following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
Meet Tauna Rankin, Coral Reef Conservation Program Specialist
Tauna is a Coral Reef Conservation Program Specialist for NOAA Fisheries Office of Habitat Conservation in Silver Spring, Maryland. Tauna has worked with NOAA since 2010, when she joined the Office of Habitat Conservation as a John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellow. She currently represents NOAA Fisheries in the NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program. The Coral Reef Conservation Program is a partnership among NOAA offices to understand and conserve coral reef ecosystems.
Meet Zuzy Abdala, Program Analyst
Zuzy Abdala is a Program Analyst in Silver Spring, Maryland, contracting for Earth Resources Technology, Inc. She works to evaluate the impact of the technical assistance that the NOAA Restoration Center provides to its partners.
Meet Susan-Marie Stedman, Policy Analyst
Susan-Marie Stedman is a Policy Analyst in Silver Spring, Maryland. She has been with NOAA for 28 years and has seen amazing changes in the complexity of our work and diversity in the workforce.
Learn more about Susan-Marie's work
Meet Terill Hollweg, Marine Habitat Resource Specialist
Terill Hollweg is a Marine Habitat Resource Specialist in Seattle, Washington. She works with the NOAA Restoration Center to restore habitat in the Pacific Northwest region.
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Laurel Jennings works as a Marine Habitat Resource Specialist with the NOAA Restoration Center. Laurel first started at NOAA in 2005 as a NOAA Corps officer and began working with the NOAA Restoration Center in 2007.
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Renee is a GIS Developer for NOAA Fisheries Office of Habitat Conservation, working to transform the way people look at habitat policy and restoration efforts through spatial mapping and analysis.
Ian brings more than a decade of experience, including work in Florida’s Everglades, to restoring the Gulf of Mexico after Deepwater Horizon.
Carlo Canasa is an IT Support Specialist for NOAA's Office of Habitat Conservation. He has worked with NOAA for over 5 years and currently works Habitat’s Operations, Management, and Information division in Silver Spring, MD. Carlo works with the IT team to support and fulfill the critical technological needs across the Office of Habitat on a daily basis.
Polly Hicks is the Policy, Planning, and Communications Supervisor for the NOAA Restoration Center, a division of the Office of Habitat Conservation. She has been with NOAA for 15 years. She recently relocated to NOAA Headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, after spending more than a decade at the Restoration Center’s Office in Seattle, Washington.
Learn more about Polly's restoration work
Julie Reichert-Nguyen is a natural resources specialist with the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office in Annapolis, Maryland. She focuses on climate issues in collaboration with the Chesapeake Bay Program. Julie has been with NOAA for just under a year.
Meet Bjorn Lake, National Fish Passage Engineer
National Fish Passage Engineer Bjorn Lake has worked with NOAA for five years. He currently works at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
Heather Coleman is the Deep Sea Coral Research and Technology Coordinator. She has worked for NOAA's Office of Habitat Conservation in Silver Spring, Maryland for four years.
Learn more about Heather's work
Temi Oyewole is a Funds Management Specialist for NOAA's Office of Habitat Conservation. She has worked with NOAA for over 15 years and currently works in the Operations, Management and Information Office in Silver Spring MD. Temi works with the Finance and Budget team to coordinate and track procurement and contractual actions.
Temi Oyewole with oysters.
Meet Lani Watson, Marine Habitat Resource Specialist for NOAA's Office of Habitat Conservation
Lani Watson is the Marine Habitat Resource Specialist for NOAA's Office of Habitat Conservation in Honolulu, Hawaii. She has been with NOAA for 21 years.
Meet Mel Landry, Marine Habitat Resource Specialist
Mel Landry, in NOAA’s Restoration Center, leads projects restoring habitat in Louisiana. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill impacted natural resources here, and barrier islands and marsh are disappearing at an alarming rate.
Mel Landry (third from left) joined federal and state trustee partners at an event dedicating the newly restored Queen Bess Island in Louisiana.
Carl Alderson is the Mid-Atlantic Restoration Coordinator for NOAA's Office of Habitat Conservation. He has worked with NOAA for 17 years. He currently serves as the Mid-Atlantic Restoration Coordinator for NOAA's Office of Habitat Conservation at J.J. Howard Marine Sciences Laboratory in Sandy Hook Highlands, New Jersey. For the past decade, Carl has been restoring habitat for American shad and other migrating fish in the northeastern U.S.
Meet Jay Lazar, Physical Scientist and Field Program
Jay Lazar is a Physical Scientist and Field Program Coordinator with the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office in the Office of Habitat Conservation in NOAA Fisheries. He has been with NOAA for 6 years and currently works in the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office, Annapolis, Maryland. He works to restore sustainable populations and ecologically valuable habitat for the native Eastern oyster in the Chesapeake Bay.
Bart Merrick has worked with NOAA for nearly 10 years. He is the Education Coordinator for NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office’s Environmental Science Training Center in Oxford, Maryland. He works on oyster restoration and educates others about the importance of Chesapeake Bay habitat.
Bart Merrick prepares a demonstration for an Environmental Science Training Center workshop for educators.
Meet Robin Peuser, Supervisory Program Analyst
Robin Peuser works as a Supervisory Program Analyst in NOAA Fisheries’ Office of Habitat Conservation. She has been with NOAA for 14 years and currently works at NOAA Headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland. A big part of her work is helping others understand the value of habitat.
Meet Eric Hutchins, Habitat Restoration Biologist
Eric Hutchins is a Habitat Restoration Biologist who is passionate about showing people of all ages the importance of the habitat they live in and around.. He has worked on more than 50 dam removal projects during his 22 years in habitat restoration.
Meet Andrew Larkin, Senior Program Analyst
Andrew Larkin works as a Senior Program Analyst for the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office. He has worked for NOAA for almost 23 years. His office is located at the NOAA Office of Coast Survey Atlantic Hydrographic Branch building in Norfolk, Virginia. Currently he is leading a stakeholder workgroup to complete implementation of an oyster restoration blueprint for the Lynnhaven River in Virginia Beach.
Learn more about Andrew's work
Andrew Larkin joins a group as they plant the last few ceremonial spat-on-shell oysters marking the completion of oyster restoration in Virginia’s Lafayette River.
Meet Alejandra Mickle-Arce, Marine Habitat Resource Specialist
Alejandra works as part of the Damage Assessment Remediation and Restoration Program team in the NOAA Restoration Center. After growing up on the Peruvian coast, she turned her love of the ocean, along with strong family support, into restoring coastal habitats here in the United States.
Learn more about Alejandra's work
Meet Natalie Cosentino-Manning, Marine Habitat Restoration Specialist
Natalie has worked for the NOAA Restoration Center for 20 years restoring seagrass, kelp, rocky intertidal habitats that have been injured by oil spills and hazardous waste, and those that need extra help to make them healthy for fish. Natalie grew up exploring California and knew at an early age that she wanted a career in natural resources.
Learn more about Natalie's work
