NALMS 2016 Election Results

The annual election for officers and directors is an important way for NALMS members to provide input in the management of the Society. Our officers and directors are all volunteers who serve without pay. Thank you to all the candidates for their dedication to NALMS and thank you to all NALMS members who participated in this year’s election!

President-elect – Frank Browne

Dr. Frank Browne, P.E. received his doctorate degree from the University of Florida. He is president of F.X. Browne, Inc., an environmental consulting firm specializing in lake and watershed management. Frank was a member of the 11- person committee that founded NALMS. He has attended every NALMS meeting from the first organizing meeting in Portland, Maine in 1980. Frank has been active in NALMS, serving on several planning and financial committees; he was a NALMS Board member and also served as NALMS Secretary. He is a member of the NALMS Education Committee. He is co-chair of the NALMS Student Awards Committee. Frank has over 35 years of experience in lake and watershed management. He wrote major sections of the EPA Clean Lakes Manual. He also wrote a chapter in the NALMS Lake and Reservoir Restoration Handbook. Frank created the Pennsylvania Lake Management Society (PALMS), and was its first president. Frank is also an Adjunct Professor at Villanova University where he teaches graduate courses in Lake and Stream Ecology and Stormwater Management.

Secretary – Amy Smagula

Amy Smagula is a Limnologist with the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services where she coordinates the Exotic Species Program. Amy has an undergraduate degree in Natural Resources as well as a Master of Science in Water Resources Management, both from the University of New Hampshire. Amy has over 18 years of experience in field and laboratory limnology, aquatic plant and algae identification and management, lake and watershed assessment and management, lake related policy-making, wetland inspection and permitting, and shoreland protection.

Region 1 Director – Perry Thomas

Perry Thomas has been Lakes and Ponds Program Manager with the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation since February 2015. Previously, she worked as a faculty member and dean at Sterling College in Craftsbury Common, Vermont. She and her students protected and restored waters across the Northeast Kingdom, working closely with state and federal partners. She also volunteered time with conservation organizations, including stints as president of the Lake Eden Association, Federation of Vermont Lakes & Ponds, and Memphremagog Watershed Association. She earned a B.A. in Biology from Dartmouth College and Ph.D. in Aquatic Ecology from Northern Arizona University.

Region 3 Director – Lisa Borre

Lisa Borre has worked on lake conservation and management for more than 25 years. She is currently a Senior Research Specialist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies. She was coordinator of the Lake Champlain Basin Program from 1990 to 1997 and co-founded LakeNet, a world lakes network that was active from 1998 to 2008. She is now an active member of the Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network (GLEON) and an associate investigator with the SAFER Project: Sensing the Americas’ Freshwater Ecosystem Risk from Climate Change. As a contributor to National Geographic’s Water Currents blog, Lisa writes about global lake topics. Lisa has a B.A. from the University of Vermont and an M.E.S. from Yale University.

Region 5 Director – Eugene Braig

Eugene Braig—MS fisheries management—is Aquatic Ecosystems Program Director with Ohio State University (OSU) Extension and past Assistant Director of the Ohio Sea Grant College Program and OSU’s Lake Erie-based biological field station, F.T. Stone Laboratory. He is a past president of the Ohio Chapter of the American Fisheries Society and the Ohio Lake Management Society (OLMS) and continues to serve the governing boards of those organizations, the Water Management Association of Ohio, and several others. He also represents Ohio on the Mississippi River Basin Panel of the national Aquatic Nuisance Species Task Force and previously served on the International Joint Commission’s Council of Great Lakes Research Managers and grant-making committee of the Lake Erie Protection Fund.

Region 9 Director – Ellen Preece

Ellen Preece, PhD, is a limnologist with Robertson-Bryan, Inc. in Elk Grove, California. Ellen’s research is focused on cyanobacterial harmful algae blooms (CyanoHABs) and the accumulation of associated toxins in seafood that humans consume. For the past six years, she has conducted research on the transfer of cyanotoxins from inland lakes to nearshore marine areas. Ellen was actively involved in the NALMs affiliate group WALPA for five years where she served as secretary and President and is now a CALMS director. Ellen possesses a BS in Resource Economics from University of New Hampshire and her MS and PhD in Environmental Sciences from Washington State University.

Student At-large Director – Sarah Burnet

Sarah Burnet is pursuing her PhD at the University of Idaho, where she completed a MS in the spring of 2016. She received a BS from Western Washington University. Her PhD research is focused on internal loading of phosphorus to reservoirs. Specifically, she is interested in understanding the relationships between sediment type, particle size, the availability of iron, and dissolved oxygen in the release of P. This builds on her MS research which focused on measuring the seasonal internal phosphorus load as part of a mass balance for Willow Creek Reservoir in Oregon. Sarah’s previous work experience includes sampling and analysis on all five Great Lakes with Cornell University as well as collecting data and samples after the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil spill. Sarah has been a member of NALMS since 2014.