The Northern Gulf Institute at Mississippi State University Welcomes New Employees
March 15, 2021
Dr. Paul Mickle
joined MSU in January 2021 as the new NGI Co-Director. His work location is Stennis Space Center. Paul is also an Associate Professor with the Mississippi State University Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Aquaculture and an Associate Director of the MSU Geosystems Research Institute. Dr. Mickle has a Ph.D. in Fish Ecology from USM. He most recently was the Chief Science Officer at the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources.
Dr. Luke Thompson joined MSU in July 2020 as an Associate Research Professor. His work location is the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) in Miami, FL. Dr. Thompson has a Ph.D. in Biology from MIT. His research centers around 'omics. Luke agreed to be the NGI Program Coordinator at AOML in November 2020.
Jack Prior is working with the NMFS lab in Pascagoula processing video data of fish in untrawlable habitats to improve stock assessment models using VIAME software. He has a Master of Science in Biology from the University of West Florida.
Dr. Ebenezer (Eben) Nyadjro
is a physical and satellite oceanographer located at Stennis Space Center, MS. His current research focuses on database development for global microplastics and global ocean currents. He is also part of an ocean climatology team that processes and produces in-situ salinity and temperature databases. Eben has a Ph.D. in Marine Science from the University of South Carolina.
Katie Palubicki is located in Staunton Virginia and is an Outreach Coordinator with NCEI offices. She supports the Oceanographic and Geophysical Science and Services Division (OGSSD) Scientific Information Services (SIS) in the areas of customer service, social media, engagement, communications and outreach, and scientific web content.
Dr. Arvind Shantharam is a deep-sea oceanographer with the Northern Gulf Institute at Stennis Space Center, working with the Deep-Sea Coral Research and Technology Program managing deep-sea cruise data and assisting in the effort of database synthesis for conservation decision-making.
Oceane Boulais is a research engineer working on a project funded by the National Marine Fisheries Service. Her work involves AI/ML for Electronic Monitoring (EM) for Gulf States fisheries. She has a Master of Media Arts and Sciences from MIT.
Dr. Xiaomin Chen
is a research engineer working on a project funded by the National Marine Fisheries Service. His work centers around the hardware (computer, cameras, etc.) for Electronic Monitoring (EM) in Gulf States fisheries. He has a Ph.D. in Electrical & Computer Engineering from Mississippi State University.
Dr. Xiaomin Chen is a post-doc working with NOAA scientists at the Hurricane Research Division at the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) in Miami, Fl. His research is supporting enhancements to Hurricane Weather Research and Forecasting model (HWRF) SST sensitivity studies. Dr. Chen has a Ph.D. in Meteorology from Nanjing University.
Dr. Enrique Orozco-Lopez is a post-doc joining the NGI team at Stennis beginning in January of 2021 where he will be compiling and analyzing water quality data in the Mississippi Sound and assisting Dr. Anna Linhoss, Dr. Paul Mickle, and Dr. Just Cebrian in ongoing water quality modeling efforts. Enrique has a Ph.D. in Agricultural and Biological Engineering from the University of Florida.
