University of California Names Director of California
Sea Grant Program

September 2000

Oakland, CA - The University of California Vice Provost for Research, Dr. Robert Shelton, has named Dr. Russell A. Moll as Director of the California Sea Grant Program, one of the University's distinctive interdisciplinary research programs.

Jeff Crooks

Russ Moll

California Sea Grant (CSG) is the largest of 30 university-based programs in a national network funded through the National Sea Grant College Program at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a division of the U.S. Department of Commerce. California Sea Grant funds marine research at public and private universities throughout the state. Federal funds are matched with funds from state and other nonfederal sources to carry out marine research, education and outreach programs on a local, state, regional and national level. CSG is based at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at U.C. San Diego.

"Dr. Moll brings extensive, valuable experience that seems tailor-made for our Sea Grant Program in California," said Dr. Shelton. "He has not only served as Director of the Michigan Sea Grant Program, but also is serving as President of the Sea Grant Association, which provides leadership to all 30 Sea Grant Programs."

Moll has broad experience in both research and administration. He has served as Director of the Michigan Sea Grant Program since 1996, and previously held the position of Assistant Director for eight years. He was Director of the University of Michigan/NOAA's Cooperative Institute for Limnology and Ecosystems Research in Ann Arbor, 1989–1994, overseeing its rapid growth to more than 70 affiliated scientists. Moll also served for two years as Associate Program Director for the Biological Oceanography Program of the National Science Foundation in Washington, D.C.

"I greatly look forward to the opportunity to serve as the new California Sea Grant Director," said Moll, who will assume his new position on September 18, 2000.

Moll has traveled, studied and published extensively on the Great Lakes, nearshore marine environments, and temperate and tropical rivers during his 26-year career at the University of Michigan. His primary research interests are the biology of phytoplankton and biostatistics. Moll's work has taken him to West Africa, where he managed a research team conducting a major study of the Gambia River.

Moll earned his Ph.D. degree in 1974 from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.