Scientist Biographies
Mr. Kurt M. Schaefer – Senior Scientist, Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission
Mr. Schaefer serves as a senior scientist for the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC), with his office located at their headquarters in La Jolla, California. He has been conducting research at the IATTC on the life history and behavior of tropical tunas, including bigeye, skipjack, and yellowfin, for about 32 years. Since 2000 he has been in charge of tagging studies and has been utilizing advanced technologies, including various types of electronic tags, to investigate both broad- and fine-scale movements and behavior of tropical tunas throughout the eastern Pacific Ocean. He has spent considerable time at sea aboard commercial fishing vessels conducting tagging and other types of experiments.
Mr. Schaefer holds a B.S. in Fisheries Science from Humboldt State University, and an M.S. in Biology from San Diego State University.
Mr. Daniel W. Fuller – Associate Scientist, Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission
Mr. Fuller serves as an Associate Scientist for the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC), with an office located at their headquarters in La Jolla, California. He has been conducting research at the IATTC on the life history and behavior of tropical tunas, including bigeye, skipjack, and yellowfin, for over 11 years. Since 2000 he has been involved with tagging studies and has been utilizing advanced technologies, including various types of electronic tags, to investigate both broad- and fine-scale movements and behavior of tropical tunas throughout the eastern Pacific Ocean. He has spent considerable time at sea aboard commercial fishing vessels conducting tagging and other types of experiments. Prior to being employed by the IATTC, Mr. Fuller worked for various other research organizations including Scripps institution of Oceanography and National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).
Mr. Fuller holds a B.S. in Biology from San Diego State University.
Corey Eddy – PhD student, University of Massachusetts’ School of Marine Science
Corey is a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. For his doctoral thesis he is studying the physiological stress response, survival, and post-release behavior of sharks captured in tuna purse seines. To do so, he will analyze blood samples for characteristic indicators of stress and use advanced data-archiving electronic tags to investigate movement patterns and behavior following release. Since 2008, he has also been studying the diversity and population structure of sharks in Bermuda, with a specific focus on the life history, feeding ecology, and movements of Galapagos sharks.
Corey holds a B.S. in Marine Biology from the University of Rhode Island and has recently been awarded a Graduate Research Fellowship through the National Science Foundation.
