Florida Tech Presents Oil Spill Seminar March 11
MELBOURNE, FLA.—Florida Institute of Technology will present a seminar on the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill on March 11 at 4 p.m. Guest presenter Thomas Shirley, professor of life sciences, Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi, will discuss “The Deep Horizon Disaster: Lessons from the Ghosts of Oil Spills Past.” Free and open to the public, the seminar will be at the Olin Engineering Auditorium on campus.
Shirley holds the endowed chair of Biodiversity and Conservation Science at the Harte Research Institute, Texas A&M University. A marine biologist, he has published on the ecology and physiology of marine mammals, sea birds, fish, invertebrates, and on pollution biology and conservation issues. He has written on new species of invertebrates from around the world, including Antarctica, the Arctic, Philippines, Mediterranean, Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico. His recent research has addressed the ecology of commercially important crabs, distribution of invertebrates on WWII shipwrecks, seamount ecology, organisms associated with deep-sea corals, the ecology of priapulid worms and more.
The seminar is sponsored by the Florida Sea Grant’s Elise B. Newell Seminar Series. It is being presented in conjunction with the 75th Annual Meeting of the Florida Academy of Sciences at Florida Tech on March 11 and 12.
For more information, contact John Trefry, Florida Tech professor in the Department of Marine and Environmental Systems, at jtrefry@fit.edu or (321) 674-7305.
