Level 3 is now unlocked for all volunteers - so you can keep classifying away and helping us identify and count fish within the photos. Not a fish ID expert? No worries - we have tips and tricks in our tutorials and field guide. Feel free to reach out to our research team via the Talk Boards with any fish ID questions.
The Team
Julia Byrd
SAFMC Staff, Citizen Science Program Manager
Julia is the Citizen Science Program Manager for the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council in Charleston, SC. She oversees the Council’s citizen science efforts working to help develop and support projects to get fishermen and other citizen scientists more involved in helping collect data that can be used to manage marine fisheries.
Alex Rocco
North Carolina State University
Alex is a PhD Candidate at NCSU studying North Carolina blue crab population dynamics via modeling and tagging studies. He started collaborating with the SAFMC on the FISHstory project in the spring of 2023, and has since worked to adapt the project from the pilot study into its current form. He will also be monitoring the talk boards, so feel free to reach out if you have any questions!
Allie Iberle
SAFMC Staff, Fisheries Scientist
Allie earned her bachelor's degree from Coastal Carolina University in marine science, and went on to earn a master's degree from Johns Hopkins University in environmental science and policy. She started her partnership with the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council while completing her master's degree as she partnered with a staff member to complete her thesis project.
Chip Collier
SAFMC, Deputy Director for Science
Chip is the Deputy Director for Science for the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council. He helps to oversee the Citizen Science Program, SEDAR Program, and analyses for management needs. He helps the Citizen Science Program with methodology. development and data analysis.
Meg Withers
SAFMC, Citizen Science Project Coordinator
Meg Withers is the Citizen Science Project Coordinator for the SAFMC. She primarily supports the SAFMC Release project, which collects information about shallow water grouper and Red Snapper, and she works with SAFMC Release participants, performs outreach, and monitors the project's data. She is assisting with the communication and outreach for the FISHstory project.
Rusty Hudson
Charter and Commercial Captain, Photo Supplier
Rusty Hudson is the recreational and commercial fisherman who supplied the historical photos for FISHstory. Throughout his career he has been very involved in fisheries management. He was instrumental in the voluntary experimentation of the Turtle Excluding Device (TED) in the early 80’s. In 1991 he began a commercial shark fishing membership group Directed Shark Fisheries Association (DSFA) and worked full time with Trans-Ocean. He currently sits as a member of both the South Atlantic Mackerel Cobia Advisory Panel and the South Atlantic Snapper Grouper Advisory Panel.
Ken Brennan
SEFSC Beaufort, Design Team
Ken Brennan is the Coordinator of the Southeast Region Headboat Survey (SRHS), NOAA Southeast Fisheries Science Center (SEFSC) at the Beaufort Laboratory, Beaufort, NC. Along with his SRHS Coordinator duties, he is currently the Recreational Fishing Coordinator for the SEFSC . Most recently he has been involved with implementing electronic logbook reporting in the South Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico for-hire fishery, regulatory reporting amendments with both the South Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Councils, and many other data collection issues facing recreational fisheries in the southeast region.
Erin Burge
Coastal Carolina University, Design Team
Erin J. Burge (PhD 2003) is a Professor of Marine Science at Coastal Carolina University (CCU), near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. At CCU, Erin's teaching includes lecture and laboratory courses in marine biology, diseases and parasites of aquatic organisms, fish ecology, and an annual research-intensive study abroad program to Discovery Bay Marine Laboratory (University of the West Indies) in Jamaica. He is a contributor to Explore.org's SharkCam, a live streaming underwater webcam attached to the base of Frying Pan Tower, 35 miles off the coast of North Carolina.
Tracey Smart
SC DNR, Design Team
Tracey is the data manager for the Reef Fish and Coastal Trawl Surveys at South Carolina Department of Natural Resources. In addition to serving as a field biologist, she is an age reader for amberjack, wreckfish, triggerfish, and vermilion snapper and conducts a variety of data analyses in support of stock assessments.
Brad Teer
SEFSC Beaufort, Design Team
Brad is a Biological Scientist that has been working at the Noaa Beaufort, NC lab as a NMFS (national marine fisheries service) contractor for over 16 years. He also acts as the NMFS divemaster for the lab. In recent years, he has worked with the SEFIS (Southeast Fishery-Independent Survey) group sampling the South Atlantic shelf break for important reef fish species.
Jie Cao
North Carolina State University, Design Team
Dr. Cao's Research is in the general area of quantitative fisheries ecology with an emphasis on population dynamics and ecosystem modeling. He is most interested in ecologically motivated and statistically innovative research that may improve science-based natural resource management. Specifically, he evaluates and develops quantitative techniques for assessing the past and current status of fish and invertebrate populations. As such, he works closely with state, federal and international natural resource agencies.
