Dr. Gavin Fay, Assistant Professor of Fisheries Oceanography at Umass Dartmouth's School for Marine Science & Technology, is principal investigator on projects funded by the Gulf of Maine Research Institute (GMRI), International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (MAFMC), and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Fay’s research activities include management strategy evaluation to test the performance of ecosystem-based fisheries management strategies, assessing economic effects of fishing scenarios through model coupling, and applying statistical methods for marine population assessment.

Grants & awards

As part of an award from NOAA’s Climate Program Office, and in collaboration with Professor Steve Cadrin of SMAST and NOAA Fisheries and GMRI scientists, Fay’s GMRI grant of $540,191 is for “Development of Robust Management Strategies for Northeast Groundfish Fisheries in a Changing Climate.” The project will assess how the performance of rules used to manage fisheries in New England will be affected by warming ocean temperature, and develop climate-responsive methods for fisheries assessment and management.

Additionally, Fay received $210,000 from NOAA’s National Marine Sanctuaries Program to investigate the productivity and ecology of sand habitats, and $57,400 from the MAFMC to determine feasibility of fishing mortality-based approaches for managing the recreational summer flounder fishery, which supports the Council’s requirements for annual catch limits. Fay also received $29,129 from ICES for his study “Comparison of IUCN Categories of Conservation Status and Fisheries Reference Points.”

Mentorship

His professorial leadership also led to a $105,419 award from the NOAA Fisheries-Sea Grant Population and Ecosystem Dynamics Fellowship program to PhD candidate Megan Winton for her project “Integrating telemetry data to improve abundance estimates and management advice for a highly migratory marine predator.”