Mark E. Luther

Dr. Luther is director of the Ocean Monitoring and Prediction Lab in the University of South Florida College of Marine Science, where he co-directs the Coastal Ocean Monitoring and Prediction System. Dr. Luther's research involves the combination of real-time ocean observations with numerical models of ocean currents and processes and their application to various problems ranging from water quality in estuaries to variability in large-scale ocean circulation and its relation to climate change. He provides operation and maintenance support for the NOAA/NOS Tampa Bay Physical Oceanographic Real-Time System (TB-PORTS) through Marine Science Associates, Inc. (http://marinesci.com). Dr. Luther is the author of more than 97 publications (51 refereed) on various aspects of marine science and has presented invited lectures at numerous national and international institutions and conferences. He is active in national and international scientific societies and is a past Secretary of the American Geophysical Union Ocean Sciences Section. He serves or has served as a member of the US Global Ocean Observing System Steering Committee, the World Climate Research Program Indian Ocean Climate Studies Panel, the World Ocean Circulation Experiment Indian Ocean Scientific Steering Committee, the National Research Council US National Committee for the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, the Tampa Bay Harbor Safety and Security Committee Technical Subcommittee, and the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council Agency on Bay Management. From 1996 to 2004, he served as the US National Delegate to the International Association for Physical Sciences of the Ocean (IAPSO). He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Gulf of Mexico Coastal Ocean Observing System (http://gcoos.org), a regional component of the Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS; see http://www.ocean.us), and is a representative to the National Federation of Regional Associations of the IOOS. Dr. Luther serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors and is a founding partner of the Alliance for Coastal Technologies (http://act-us.info), a NOAA-funded partnership of research institutions, resource managers, and private sector companies dedicated to fostering the development and adoption of effective and reliable sensors and platforms. He is Chairman of the Marine Technology Society Florida Section and is Chairman of the Board of Directors of the St. Petersburg Pier Aquarium.