Emily is interested in how the interactions between organisms and their environment change over space and time. She especially enjoys research questions that help us understand migration ecology and that inform the conservation of California species and ecosystems. Her tools of choice to answer these questions are biotelemetry and stable isotope ecology. Emily is an Assistant Research Scientist in the Conservation Research Department at Monterey Bay Aquarium, where she has worked for the past two years. In this position, she has worked on several projects studying the historical ecology of sea turtles and marine macroalgae, fish ocean movements, and fisheries. Before joining the Monterey Bay Aquarium, she graduated with a PhD in Ecology from U.C. Davis and a Masters from Columbia University in Conservation Biology. Her dissertation involved tagging and tracking green and white sturgeon in the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento River to examine spatial niche partitioning. Emily is also interested in communicating science to a wide audience though data visualizations and art.

Dr. James Lindholm is the James W. Rote Distinguished Professor of Marine Science and Policy and the Chair of the Department of Marine Science at California State University Monterey Bay. He also serves the Chair of the Research Diving Program.

A native Californian, Dr. Lindholm attended California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo for his undergraduate studies, and Boston University for graduate school (both MA and PhD). He then completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the National Undersea Research Center at the University of Connecticut, before taking a job with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Dr. Lindholm has conducted research around the world, including the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans, as well as the Mediterranean, Caribbean  and Red Seas, using technologies ranging from ROVs, AUVs and HOVs to SCUBA and drift camera systems. His research interests include the landscape ecology of fishes, design and evaluation of spatial management regimes, and the ecological effects of fishing.

​Dr. Lindholm has published a textbook, Dynamic Modeling for Marine Conservation (with Springer Verlag) and 39 research articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals. His first novel, a thriller titled Into a Canyon Deep, was published in Summer 2017. The sequel, Blood Cold, was published in December 2018. He is now working on Dead Men's Silence, Chris Black's third adventure.

Director Jim Harvey, has taught at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories since 1989. Himself a 1979 graduate of the Moss Landing Masters program, he returned to chair the Vertebrate Ecology Lab after obtaining a Ph.D. in Oceanography (with minors in Wildlife Ecology and Statistics) at Oregon State University in 1987, and completing a NRC Postdoctoral Fellowship with NOAA’s National Marine Mammal Laboratory in Seattle, Washington, in 1989.

Dr. Harvey’s research interests include the ecology, morphology, and behavior of marine mammals, birds, and turtles; VHF/satellite-telemetry; marine mammal/fisheries interactions; vertebrate sampling techniques and experimental design; age and growth; population and trophic dynamics; and marine mammal stranding studies. His past research has included studies of population dynamics, food consumption, and behavior of harbor seals (Phoca vitulina); behavior of rehabilitated harbor seals released to the wild; use of acoustical deterrents in marine mammal/fisheries conflicts; radio-tagging gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus); and potential effects of toxic pollution on harbor seal health and reproduction. He was involved in the responses to a 1979 mass stranding of sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) on the Oregon coast, the 1988 entrapment of three gray whales in the ice near Barrow, Alaska, and the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska.

Currently, Dr. Harvey’s research includes studies regarding feeding ecology of California sea lions (Zalophus californianus) and Pacific harbor seals (Phoca vitulina richardii); pinniped/fishery interactions; assessing natural and anthropogenic changes in populations of birds, mammals, and turtles in the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary; and development of remote attachment and release mechanisms for data recorders on cetaceans, pinnipeds, and sea turtles.

Dr. Harvey serves on a federally-mandated Task Force devoted to sea lion/steelhead fisheries interactions at the Ballard Locks in Washington. He is a member of the Research Activity Panel for the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, the Reserve Advisory Committee for the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, and the Research Advisory Committee for The Marine Mammal Center.