Originally published by the Salish Sea Institute

The San Juan County Marine Resources Committee and the Salish Sea Institute at Western Washington University invite you to learn about navy jet noise and its impacts on humans and wildlife in the region from 4-6 p.m. on Tuesday, March 16, via Zoom.

Lauren Kuehne and Rob Williams will present from recently published scientific research and a moderated panel discussion will follow. The panel discussion will be moderated by Ginny Broadhurst and includes Edmund Seto; Todd Hass; and Michael Jasny.There will be opportunities for questions from the audience.

To register and for more information, visit https://alumni.wwu.edu/event/salish-sea-science-symposium-implications-noise-navy-aircraft-salish-sea-and-olympic-region. Contact the WWU Alumni Association for questions about this event. Call 360-650-3353 or emailalumni@wwu.edu, if you have any questions or comments.

Kuehne is an environmental scientist who trained and worked in the Puget Sound region for over a decade. She received her master’s in Aquatic and Fishery Sciences from the University of Washington in 2012 and continued to work as a research scientist in the Freshwater Ecology and Conservation Lab at UW until 2019. She has conducted applied conservation research in collaboration with government agencies, tribes and nonprofit organizations. Her recent work as an Independent Consultant for Omfishient Consulting has shifted toward passive acoustic monitoring to conduct ecology and noise pollution research in both aquatic and terrestrial environments.

Williams is a marine conservation biologist who along with Erin Ashe, co-founded Oceans Initiative. Some happy accidents led Rob to study whales in 1995, and although his work occasionally veers toward salmon, sharks or sunfish, most of his research involves whales and whale conservation. Marine conservation biology allows him to marry creative science to a good cause. It combines his love of travel, science and math, and the ocean and the animals that live in it. He likes identifying gaps that affect our ability to protect marine wildlife and developing pragmatic ways to fill in those gaps cheaply and well.

Broadhurst is the first director of the Salish Sea Institute at WWU. She started in June 2017. From 2007 to 2017 she was the Executive Director of the Northwest Straits Commission; prior to that, she held staff positions at NWSC and at the Puget Sound Action Team in Olympia, WA. She has expertise in stewardship, protection and restoration of the Salish Sea. She’s served on numerous regional and international advisory groups related to marine debris, ocean acidification, marine protected areas and coastal ecosystem health. Ginny earned a BS in Environmental Conservation from the University of New Hampshire and a Masters in Marine Affairs from the University of Washington. She and her family live in Bellingham, Washington. Ginny has many favorite places on the Salish Sea, including Shaw Island Marine Preserve and South Beach at American Camp on San Juan Island.

Seto is an associate professor in the Exposure Sciences Group of the Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences in the School of Public Health at the University of Washington in Seattle. He serves as the Deputy Director of the University of Washington’s NIEHS P30 EDGE Center and co-directs the Exposure Core. He also has a Visiting Researcher Position in Health Science and Technology and serves on the Faculty of Medicine at Aalborg University in Denmark, where he collaborates with clinical researchers on Big Data projects for chronic disease management.

Hass is a special assistant to the executive director at the Puget Sound Partnership. He led the Vessels Working Group for Governor Inslee’s Orca Task Force and serves as the agency’s lead for transboundary coordination. His work for the Partnership has focused on building regional scientific consensus and analytical tools that advance strategic recovery planning—ranging from eelgrass conservation to oil spill prevention—across the Salish Sea. He is an active member of the Puget Sound Harbor Safety Committee, Washington Invasive Species Council and Puget Sound Ecosystem Monitoring Program.

Jasny is a leading expert in the law and policy of ocean noise pollution. For more than a decade, he has directed high-profile litigation, lobbying efforts, science-based policy development, and public advocacy to improve the regulation of this emergent global problem. His work also focuses on securing protection for endangered marine mammals and their habitat, opposing development projects that threaten marine mammals off the U.S. and Canadian coastlines, and improving the management of fisheries, whale-watching tourism, and other sectors that impact these vulnerable species. Jasny is the author or co-author of numerous publications in legal, policy, and scientific journals. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and a JD from Harvard Law School and is based in Vancouver and Santa Monica.

There will be auto-captions available for this event. To request closed captions, please mark the request on the registration form. Advance notice of three days to one week is appreciated.