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Bruce Menge
Wayne and Gladys Professor of Marine Biology
OSU Distinguished Professor
Department of Integrative Biology
Oregon State University, 3029 Cordley Hall, Corvallis, Oregon 97331-2914
T 541-737-5358 | F 541-737-3360 | http://zoology.science.oregonstate.edu
9 February 2014
Faculty Senate
Oregon State University
Corvallis, OR 97331-2914
Re: Nomination of Dr. Kristen Milligan for the D. Curtis Mumford Faculty Service
Award
It is a pleasure to nominate Dr. Kristen Milligan for the D. Curtis Mumford Faculty
Service Award. I believe that she is an exceptionally strong and appropriate candidate in
that she fits the criteria quite precisely. That is, her work has provided “exceptional,
ongoing, and dedicated interdepartmental, interdisciplinary and inter-institutional service
to the faculty and to OSU.”
Kristen serves as the Program Coordinator for the Partnership for Interdisciplinary
Studies of Coastal Oceans or “PISCO.” PISCO is a consortium of 14 scientists spread
over four west coast institutions. It was begun in 1999 by Jane Lubchenco and me at
OSU, Prof. George Somero (former OSU faculty member) at Stanford, and Prof. Steven
Gaines (former Lubchenco/Menge graduate student) at UC Santa Barbara (UCSB). OSU
is the lead campus, and at present, includes five principal investigators; Jack Barth in
CEOAS, Francis Chan, Kristen and me in Integrative Biology (formerly Zoology), and
Bob Cowen, the new Director of Hatfield Marine Science Center (HMSC). I serve as the
lead PI. UC Santa Barbara has four PIs, Stanford’s Hopkins Marine Station has two, UC
Sant Cruz has two, and the University of Hawaii has one. PISCO has four goals. One is to
gain a long-term (15 years and still going), large-scale (US west coast) understanding of
the influence of oceanographic and climatic processes on coastal ecosystem, particularly
those on rocky shores and kelp beds. Second is to provide scientific knowledge from this
research to policy-makers and managers to help in the effort to conserve marine resources
and adapt to climate change. Third is to train the next generation of interdisciplinary
marine scientists and thus propel the wider effort to understand how ecosystems respond
to environmental challenges. Fourth is to establish and maintain a database of highquality, rigorously obtained ecological, oceanographic, biogeochemical, and ecophysiological data, and to make it available to all interested users. By any measure, with
the strong support of private foundations and leveraged funding from NSF and other
agencies, PISCO has been enormously successful.
A great deal of this success can be attributed to Dr. Milligan. Kristen was hired in 2004
to take on the position of Program Coordinator. During PISCO I (1999-2004) we
realized that the program needed a strong central coordinator, and that this position could
not be taken on by one of the PIs along with their other full-time duties. Kristen has
Bruce Menge
Wayne and Gladys Professor of Marine Biology
OSU Distinguished Professor
Department of Integrative Biology
Oregon State University, 3029 Cordley Hall, Corvallis, Oregon 97331-2914
T 541-737-5358 | F 541-737-3360 | http://zoology.science.oregonstate.edu
proven to be a spectacularly great choice! She provides considerable detail of the range
and nature of her duties in her CV and I won’t repeat all these here. Rather, I will
address the ways in which she fits the DC Mumford Faculty Service Award criteria with
examples taken from her 10 years of high level performance in her position.
Kristen was hired on the basis of a sterling record with the Clean Ocean Action nonprofit of New Jersey. Initially appointed at OSU as an FRA, her continual high level of
performance demonstrated that she was worthy of whatever promotions were available,
such that now she is an Assistant Professor (Senior Research), and has been elevated to
co-PI status in PISCO. Factors that led to these promotions included taking on
additional, and greater responsibilities as time went on. For example, she increasingly
became involved in supervision of personnel at OSU and oversaw many of the activities
of staff at other PISCO campuses. She has supervised as many as 10 staff at OSU, and
has also been involved in supervision of research assistants and a postdoctoral scholar.
Kristen has also been deeply involved in grant writing. For example, she has been the
primary drafter of renewal proposals to the David and Lucile Packard (a founder of
Hewlett Packard) and Gordon and Betty Moore (the founder of Intel) Foundations since
2010, and did the lion’s share of work on proposals prior to that. Kristen serves as
PISCO’s primary liaison to the Foundations, and our ongoing support from them is a
testament to the excellence with which she carries out these high-level interactions.
Kristen has also obtained or helped obtain other funds in support of PISCO, including
grants from Sea Grant and ODFW. She is currently a PI on two large pending proposals,
one to NSF to study ocean acidification, and one to NOAA to establish a biodiversity
observation network (BON). Other activities include working on website development,
the PISCO data access portal, and organizing, writing, editing and publishing PISCO
outreach materials. She has also found time to give the occasional seminar, and provide
service to the university and public.
As Program Coordinator, one of Kristen’s main responsibilities is to organize, schedule,
and moderate or co-moderate meetings (often as conference calls), within OSU, within
PISCO, and more broadly, at scientific meetings and conferences. She has also taken on
the coordination of new consortia that have been spun off of PISCO, including
OMEGAS, the Ocean Margin Ecosystem Group for Acidification Studies. Such
meetings can occur as often as monthly, and each takes a great deal of preparation.
Kristen roughs out the draft agenda, finalizes it with PIs, provides all group contacts
about timing, and call-in numbers, and moderates the call. She also takes notes during
the meeting, and provides a summary of meeting notes to all, usually within a day of the
meeting.
Criterion Specifics and how Kristen meets them: In my view, and in the view of her
letter writers, Kristen’s performance has been exceptional and dedicated, and has been
Bruce Menge
Wayne and Gladys Professor of Marine Biology
OSU Distinguished Professor
Department of Integrative Biology
Oregon State University, 3029 Cordley Hall, Corvallis, Oregon 97331-2914
T 541-737-5358 | F 541-737-3360 | http://zoology.science.oregonstate.edu
ongoing in this way since her arrival at OSU. Her activities are interdepartmental in that
at OSU, her position requires interaction with staff and faculty in CEOAS as well as
Integrative Biology (Zoology), and more recently, with the arrival of Dr. Cowen, staff
and faculty at HMSC. Her activities are interdisciplinary in that they require her to
interact with, and understand the issues within, the fields of marine ecology, physical and
biological oceanography, molecular biology, physiology, biomechanics,
biogeochemistry, genetics, computer programing and data base development. Her work
with policy also requires understanding of issues in conservation biology, social science,
fisheries, and climatology. Such interactions occur both within her department, within
OSU and across PISCO. Her activities are inter-institutional in that they involve both the
other institutions within PISCO and OMEGAS consortia, but also state and federal
agencies, including ODFW, Oregon State Parks, California Fish and Game, the
California Ocean Science Trust/Monitoring Enterprise based in California, tasked with
overseeing and funding of monitoring of marine reserves in California, NOAA and NSF.
Kristen is also involved with cross-state organizations such as the West Coast Governor’s
Agreement on climate change, C-CAN, a west coast partnership between ocean
acidification scientists and the fishing industry, and COMPASS, the Communications
Partnership for Science and Society.
Although there is much more to tell you about Kristen’s superior performance, I will
leave additional details to her letter writers. I will conclude by emphasizing that her
outstanding performance in all areas of her work is all an inevitable consequence of her
intelligence, personality and other positive personal qualities. Kristen is outgoing,
friendly, insightful, and a strong leader. She has remarkable political sense, and is
exceptional at knowing what needs to be done at critical junctures. She has excellent
foresight, and is able to identify issues that need to be addressed before I do. She is
highly organized, and able to help others get organized and work efficiently as well. As
lead PI of PISCO and OMEGAS, I am extraordinarily lucky to have Kristen overseeing
these consortia, something I wouldn’t have time to do, at least well, without her. Kristen
is highly qualified for the Mumford Award, and I hereby nominate her for it with great
enthusiasm.
Sincerely,
Bruce Menge