Steering Committee
FRANCES GULLAND
Frances is a veterinarian who has worked with stranded marine mammals for over 25 years in California, USA. She is currently a Research Associate at the University of California, Davis, USA, and serves as Commissioner on the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission.
ANDREW BROWNLOW
Andrew is a veterinary epidemiologist and pathologist and has led the Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme UK since 2009. He is a senior lecturer at the University of Glasgow, UK and is a member of the IWC expert panel for strandings. He is a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellow for 2020/21 for work on optimizing marine stranding surveillance networks.
ALEXANDER COSTIDIS
Alex is a marine mammal anatomist who has worked with stranded marine mammals for 20 years on the East and Gulf coasts of the United States. His areas of expertise are in vascular anatomy, necropsy of manatees, dolphins and large whales, and forensics of vessel collisions and fisheries bycatch. He is currently Senior Scientist at the Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center and one of four federal large whale necropsy team leaders on the East and Gulf coasts of the United States. He serves on several federal advisory committees and working groups, including the Working Group on Marine Mammal Unusual Mortality Events, the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team and the Bottlenose Dolphin Take Reduction Team.
LAURI LEACH
Lauri is a policy analyst at the Marine Mammal Commission. She worked as a veterinary technician and volunteered for marine mammal stranding programs for several years. More recently, Lauri spent two years studying the effects of river restoration on predator-prey interactions between seals and diadromous fish in Maine, USA.
SANDRO MAZZARIOL
Sandro is a veterinary pathologist and associated professor at the Veterinary School at the University of Padova. Since 2010 he has led led the Cetaceans Emergency Response Team within the Italian Stranding Network. He participated to several national and international project aimed to build functional stranding network in the Mediterranean Sea and to respond to emergencies involving marine mammals and sea turtles. Since 2017 he's been nominated chair of the International Whaling Commission Stranding Expert Panel.
MARCELA UHART
Marcy is a wildlife veterinarian and wildlife health researcher, specializing in marine mammal health. Key accolades also include founding and leading the Southern Right Whale Health Monitoring and Stranding Program in Argentina since 2003 and implementing and collaborating on projects to address the health challenges threatening southern elephant seals, pelagic albatross and petrels, huemul deer, vicuna and sea turtles, among other species.
KRISTI WEST
Kristi is an Associate Researcher at the University of Hawaii, a Professor in Residence at Chaminade University and a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institution. She has directed necropsy and cause of death investigations for stranded cetaceans in the Pacific Islands region since 2006. In addition to coordinating cetacean stranding response and necropsy in the Hawaiian Islands, Kristi continues to work closely with stranding response partners throughout the greater Pacific to build capacity for increased sampling and diagnostics. Kristi’s work broadly aims to identify and evaluate threats that cetaceans face, and she is particularly interested in understanding infectious and non-infectious disease processes as well as the impact of anthropogenic activities on Pacific Island cetaceans.