Alex Mansfield is joining NSRWA as the Watershed Ecologist and the South Shore Regional Coordinator for the Massachusetts Bays National Estuary Program. He holds an MS of Environmental, Coastal, and Ocean Sciences from UMass. Prior to joining NSRWA Alex served as a Principal Research Scientist for the non-profit Battelle Memorial Institute. For the past 20 something years Alex has been designing and conducting environmental field programs from the tropics to the arctic. This has included blue-water diving in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, tracking the Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound, sampling around icebergs in the Chukchi Sea, and developing sustainable aquaculture programs following tsunami devastation in Chile.
But Alex is a local boy at heart – spending most of his life in small New England towns. So applying his experience to local problems has been a top priority. In 2007 Alex started up the Ecology Program at Jones River Watershed Association. This program successfully focused on on-the-ground restoration projects including dam removal projects, river species monitoring, and salt marsh assessments. Alex served many years on NSRWA’s Advisory Council and is now excited to be able to dedicate a full-time effort to protecting and restoring our coastal watersheds with NSRWA and MassBays.
Welcome Alex!