OCI Chair
Dr. Noel Cadigan is the first Ocean Choice International Research Chair in Stock Assessment and Sustainable Harvest Advice for Northwest Atlantic Fisheries.
The chair is an investment of $2.5 million from industry, government, academia, donors and the Marine Institute (MI) to advance the way fish stock assessments for the Northwest Atlantic fisheries are conducted.
Dr. Noel Cadigan is a quantitative fisheries scientist specializing in statistical methods for fish stock assessment and sustainable fisheries.
He has extensive experience in the assessment of Newfoundland fish stocks, and experience with other Canadian, American and European stocks.
He received a doctor of philosophy in statistics in 1999 at the University of Waterloo, a master of applied statistics in 1993 and a bachelor of science (Honours) in 1990 from Memorial University.
He worked with Fisheries and Oceans Canada at the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Center in Newfoundland from 1990-2011 (with a 2-year break to pursue his studies) and focused on the assessment of Atlantic cod and other groundfish stocks.
Dr. Cadigan is a cross-appointed member in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Memorial University and has supervised graduate students in statistics whose research involved applications to stock assessment problems.
Dr. Jin Gao is a research scientist at CFER, and a junior Ocean Choice International (OCI) Industrial Research Chair in Fish Stock Assessment and Sustainable Harvest Advice for Northwest Atlantic Fisheries. She is a broadly trained quantitative ecologist who is particularly interested in fishery science.
She develops and applies modern statistical methods to improve stock assessment. Her current work focuses on methods to improve abundance estimates by incorporating developments in spatio-temporal modeling and improve forecasting using equation-free nonlinear time series analysis.
Jin did her second postdoctoral research at a joint position of the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences in the University of Washington and the Northwest Fisheries Science Center of NOAA. She did her first postdoctoral research at the Institute of Oceanography in the National Taiwan University.
She obtained a PhD degree in Ecology and Evolution at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and a Bachelor’s degree in Ecology at Shandong University, China.
Dr. Fan Zhang is a research scientist at CFER, and a junior Ocean Choice International (OCI) Industrial Research Chair in Fish Stock Assessment and Sustainable Harvest Advice for Northwest Atlantic Fisheries.
His research mainly focuses on the spatio-temporal recruitment dynamics of important fish species on the Grand Banks, which will contribute to improve stock assessment models for important Northwest Atlantic Fisheries.
He is interested in a holistic approach to fisheries problems by combining ecological and social aspects of fisheries systems.
He aims to study fish recruitment dynamics in the context of complex adaptive social-ecological system, and most of his research involves developing and/or improving statistical and mathematical models as well as computer simulations.
Fan did his postdoctoral research with the Department of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph.
He obtained a PhD degree in integrative biology from University of Guelph, a Master’s degree in fisheries resources and a Bachelor’s degree in marine biological resources and the environment from the Ocean University of China.
For more information on the chair and its research priorities see Ocean Choice International (OCI) Industrial Research Chair in Fish Stock Assessment and Sustainable Harvest Advice for Northwest Atlantic Fisheries (PDF).
Tourism, Culture, Industry and Innovation, Fisheries and Land Resources News Release: Understanding Fish Stocks – Marine Institute Home to New OCI Industrial Research Chair for Fish Stock Assessment
MI News Release: Marine Institute Home to new OCI Industrial Research Chair For Fish Stock Assessment
