EOAS Faculty Member Kenneth W. Able
The Northeastern Division of the American Fisheries Society (AFS) has named Rutgers University-New Brunswick’s Institute of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences (EOAS) faculty member Kenneth W. Able the 2018 recipient of the Dwight A. Webster Memorial Award. Able is a Distinguished Professor in the Rutgers Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences, and the director of the Rutgers Marine Field Station.
Able received the award at the New Jersey Sea Grant Consortium (NJSGC)’s 148th Annual Meeting of the American Fisheries Society held in Atlantic City, N.J. in August 2018. At the conference, the N.J. Sea Grant Consortium hosted a special session in honor of Able.
The N. J. Sea Grant Consortium’s press release explained, “Associate Director for the Sea Grant Administration and New Jersey Sea Grant Consortium’s Director of Research & Extension Dr. Peter Rowe held a session entitled “The Role of Sea Grant in the Career of Kenneth W. Able” to honor his ongoing collaboration and contribution to NJSGC’s overall mission. For more information, please view the abstract in its entirety.
The one-day specialty session aimed to celebrate Dr. Able’s lifelong achievements in the field of marine science and beyond: Dr. Kenneth W. Able has been a faculty member at Rutgers University for 40 years and the Director of the Marine Field Station for over 30 years (since 1987). His contributions to estuarine and marine ecology are ubiquitous. They include 252 publications, 23 published abstracts, 3 books, and 51 technical reports. He has received 163 grants, exceeding $20 million. Over the course of his career, he has advised 85 undergraduate and 41 graduate students and mentored 23 postdoctoral researchers. Dr. Able has been honored with multiple awards, such as the Nancy Foster Habitat Conservation Award (2014), the Rutgers University School of Environmental and Biological Sciences Research Excellence Award (2014), and the Oscar E. Sette Outstanding Marine Fishery Biology Award, American Fisheries Society (Marine Fisheries Section, 2004). The purpose of this special symposium is to celebrate Dr. Able’s career. Presentations in this symposium will emphasize his research interests in habitat interactions; the impacts of fisheries, urbanizing estuaries, and climate change on fishes; restoration ecology; and long-term ecological monitoring. Synthesis talks will include results from Dr. Able’s studies, and legacy talks will include studies that have built upon his findings.
Read the full NJSGC release here.
Click here to read more about the conference and other EOAS faculty and student presentations and talks, including those from EOAS faculty members Olaf Jensen and Malin Pinsky.