J. Christopher Haney, Ph.D., President and Founder
Chris' interest in all things related to natural history and wildlife arose from an over-active imagination at a tender age. Starting with a first-grade teacher who was also a bird-bander, Chris found a way to blend academic exploration with a keen love of spending as much time as possible in the outdoors.
Dr. Haney majored in Biology and minored in Chemistry at Southern University (B.Sc.; 1981). He was graduate trained at the University of Georgia's Department of Zoology, Institute of Ecology, and at the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography (Ph.D.; 1986). As a recent post-graduate investigator, he was research biologist with the Department of Interior's U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and LGL Alaska Research Associates, Inc., in Anchorage, Alaska. He was awarded a Pew marine policy fellowship at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution where he focused study on island conservation, international fisheries management,environmental security and risk, and applications of the social sciences to marine resource protection (1989-1992). He served on the wildlife faculty in the School of Forest Resources, The Pennsylvania State University, from 1992 to 1995. From 1995-2001, Dr. Haney was forest ecologist in the Ecology and Economics Research Department of the Wilderness Society, and for 12 years Chief Scientist at Defenders of Wildlife, both in Washington, DC.
At the invitation of the U.S. Department of State, Dr. Haney collaborated in the Bering Sea with the Russian Academy of Sciences, Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, and Institute of Nature Protection and Reserves. He was independently selected for the core science review team for the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, a consortium of three federal and three state natural resource agencies monitoring the long-term recovery and restoration of marine ecosystems and biota in Alaska. For those services, Dr. Haney received an Outstanding Contribution as a Peer Reviewer Award in 2000, and an Outstanding Service Award in 2002. The U.S. Dept. of State invited Dr. Haney to teach incoming diplomats a short training course on environmental and economic impacts of oil spills at the Washington Energy Seminar in 2010. The same year, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service invited Dr. Haney to lead the largest pelagic study of marine birds ever conducted in the Gulf of Mexico following the Deepwater Horizon oil blowout. For three years he directed the Nature Conservancy’s prestigious David H. Smith Conservation Research Fellowship Program, the nation's first post-doctoral program ever devoted solely to applied conservation biology. Currently Dr. Haney is Founder and President of Terra Mar Applied Sciences, LLC, a firm he launched in 2013 for independent conservation-oriented research carried out in the public interest.
Dr. Haney's expertise straddles the fields of marine science, wildlife biology, ecosystem management, and conservation policy. His projects and scholarly work have taken him to Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Bahamas, Lesser Antilles, several countries of southern Africa, and the former Soviet Union. He has authored over 80 peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and technical notes, over 150 reports, abstracts, testimony, blog communications, and other public documents, and delivered more than 150 invited seminar, conference, and workshop presentations. His work has been featured in such outlets as BioScience, Conservation Biology, Natural History, Ecological Economics, Limnology and Oceanography, Conservation-in-Practice, Forest Ecology and Management, Marine Biology, Auk, Condor, Wilson Bulletin, Marine Policy, Marine Ecology-Progress Series, Natural Areas Journal, Archives of Environmental Toxicology and Contamination, and Regional Environmental Change. Current address: Terra Mar Applied Sciences, LLC, 1304 Rittenhouse Street NW, Washington, D.C. 20011; 702-970-TMAS (8627); e-mail; jchrishaney@terramarappliedsciences.com.