Kathy Bunting-Howarth, NYSG's Interim Director; Associate Director. Credit: by R.J. Anderson

Bill Wise, Director of the program for five years, retired in June

Ithaca, NY, August 3, 2018 - The New York Sea Grant (NYSG) Board of Governors and Stony Brook University (SBU) Provost Michael Bernstein have approved the appointment of Katherine (Kathy) Bunting-Howarth, Ph.D., J.D., as the Interim Director of the NYSG Institute. Bunting-Howarth, who began this new role in early July, also functions (since April 2011) as the Associate Director of New York Sea Grant and Assistant Director of Cornell Cooperative Extension.

Bunting-Howarth was preceded by William (Bill) Wise, who, in late June, stepped down as NYSG's Director to, as he put it, "retire and rest on whatever slight laurels I have collected over a 40-year career in the marine and environmental sciences." Wise first came to NYSG in May 2013, at which time he was Associate Director of SBU's School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS).

Active in the national Sea Grant network, Bunting-Howarth is Past Chair of the Sea Grant Extension Assembly. She also serves on multiple boards and committees including the Mid-Atlantic Regional Association Coastal Ocean Observing System (MARACOOS), Executive Council of the Science and Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay, New York Water Resource Institute, Great Lakes Basin Advisory Council, Cornell Biological Field Station and the Chesapeake Bay Program Science and Technical Advisory Committee.

"I am honored by this interim appointment and opportunity to provide leadership at the helm of the New York Sea Grant Program. Together, as a team, the staff of NYSG will continue to excel at ‘Bringing Science to the Shore," said Bunting-Howarth.

Bunting-Howarth holds a Ph.D. in Marine Studies with a concentration in marine policy from the University of Delaware and a Juris Doctorate degree with a certificate in environmental and natural resource law from the University of Oregon.

As Interim Director Bunting-Howarth will maintain her office at 112 Rice Hall on Cornell University's Ithaca campus and will also occupy 125 Nassau Hall on the Stony Brook campus. She can be reached at 607-255-2832 or 631-632-6905; kathybh@cornell.edu or katherine.bunting-howarth@stonybrook.edu.

More Info: New York Sea Grant

New York Sea Grant (NYSG), a cooperative program of Cornell University and the State University of New York (SUNY), is one of 33 university-based programs under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Sea Grant College Program.

Since 1971, NYSG has represented a statewide network of integrated research, education and extension services promoting coastal community economic vitality, environmental sustainability and citizen awareness and understanding about the State’s marine and Great Lakes resources.

Through NYSG’s efforts, the combined talents of university scientists and extension specialists help develop and transfer science-based information to many coastal user groups—businesses and industries, federal, state and local government decision-makers and agency managers, educators, the media and the interested public.

The program maintains Great Lakes offices at Cornell University, SUNY Buffalo, SUNY Oswego and the Wayne County Cooperative Extension office in Newark. In the State's marine waters, NYSG has offices at Stony Brook University in Long Island, Brooklyn College and Cornell Cooperative Extension in NYC and Kingston in the Hudson Valley.

For updates on Sea Grant activities: www.nyseagrant.org has RSS, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube links. NYSG offers a free e-list sign up via www.nyseagrant.org/nycoastlines for its flagship publication, NY Coastlines/Currents, which is published quarterly. Our program also produces an occasional e-newsletter,"NOAA Sea Grant's Social Media Review," via its blog, www.nyseagrant.org/blog.