Barry Costa-Pierce

director, RI Sea Grant College Program

Barry Costa-Pierce is a professor of Fisheries and Aquaculture and director of the Rhode Island Sea Grant College Program at the University of Rhode Island. Costa-Pierce is also one of the four international editors of Aquaculture, and manages over 540 scientific manuscripts in aquaculture each year. He has over 140 publications, including the editing or authoring of 14 scientific books and monographs and is author of a recent book titled *Ecological Aquaculture*, defined as the ecological design, engineering, systems and trophic ecology of aquatic food production systems. His current research is funded by NOAA, the World Bank, FAO, WWF, the Packard Foundation, and the state of Rhode Island and examines northern bluefin tuna/California sardine aquaculture/ranching/capture fisheries in Baja California, Mexico; zoological and fisheries interactions of blue mussels with pea crabs in southern New England, USA; the development of scientifically credible sustainability indices for mariculture projects worldwide; the nutrient impacts of salmon aquaculture on pelagic ecosystems; and the inclusion of fisheries/aquaculture science into the "sustainable seafoods" movement. Before coming to URI, Costa-Pierce was a lecturer in the graduate program at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. From 1985 to 1993 he was a director and research scientist for the International Center for Living Aquatic Resources Management (ICLARM) based at the Institute of Ecology in Bandung, Indonesia then directed for 3 years ICLARM's Africa office in Malawi. He has a PhD in Oceanography from the University of Hawaii and a MS in Zoology from the University of Vermont.