Brandon, John

Marine Stock Assessment Scientist

Joined LGL in 2009

Degrees & Diplomas

Ph.D. (Fisheries Science), University of Washington, Seattle 2009
B.Sc. (Biology), University of California, San Diego 1998

Research Interests

Fisheries and marine mammal stock assessment
Bayesian methods
Environmental effects on population dynamics
Statistical catch–at–age and –length models
Computer simulation and numerical methods
Risk assessment and management strategy evaluation
Sustainable use of renewable natural resources
Management of long-lived marine species

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John provides modeling and statistical support to personnel within LGL and directly to clients. He has worked on developing mark–recapture abundance estimates from photo–identification data, including for the endangered Cook Inlet beluga whale and the Bering–Chukchi–Beaufort Seas (BCB) stock of bowhead whales. His field assignments have included vessel–based and aerial surveys for marine mammals and seabirds.

John’s experience as a fisheries scientist began with the Southwest Fisheries Science Center of the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service in 1998. There he assisted with research on dolphin populations that have been affected by the tuna fisheries in the eastern tropical Pacific. In 2003, he started graduate studies at the University of Washington, School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences under the tutelage of Prof. André Punt. His doctoral studies focused on quantifying uncertainty and incorporating environmental stochasticity in Bayesian stock assessments of marine mammals. John has presented much of this work as an Invited Participant to the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Commission, in the context of ensuring the sustainability of aboriginal whaling catch quotas for BCB bowhead and eastern North Pacific gray whales. In his dissertation, John developed methods for incorporating environmental data into population dynamics models and applied those methods to test the robustness of management strategies given a range of forecasts of future environmental conditions.

John is proficient in several programming languages, including: Fortran, AD Model Builder, Visual Basic and R/S-Plus. Additionally, he has practice with WinBUGS and Stock Synthesis software packages. John is experienced with likelihood and Bayesian approaches, and has applied model–selection and –averaging techniques as alternatives to standard hypothesis testing.

In addition to his work on modeling and assessments, John has served as a marine species observer on numerous aerial and ship–based research surveys including the Yangtze River in China, the South China Sea, the U.S. Atlantic and Pacific coasts, the eastern Tropical Pacific, the Aleutian Islands in Alaska, and the Arctic Ocean.

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