Organizing Committee
Nann Fangue, Chair and professor Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology, UC Davis
Jean M. Castillo, MSCE, P.E., WCR Engineering & Physical Sciences Branch Supervisor , NOAA Fisheries | U.S. Department of Commerce
Randy Beckwith, P.E., Riverine Stewardship Engineering Manager, California Department of Water Resources
Jon Mann, P.E., Conservation Engineering Branch Manager, California Department of Fish and Wildlife
Pernille Sporon Bøving, Academic Coordinator Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology, UC Davis
Fish Passage Conference Steering Committee
Elsa Goerig (Chair), Harvard University, USA
Elsa is currently the chair of the Fish Passage Steering Committee and has been working as a Research Associate at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. Elsa conducts research on fish locomotion and behavior, particularly swimming kinematics during high-speed locomotion. She is also a senior research fellow at the US Geological Survey’ S.O Conte Research Center, where she applies her expertise to lead projects on fish movement ecology and fish passage at dams and other riverine barriers, using advanced telemetry and statistical techniques. Her work includes species such as Atlantic salmon, sturgeon, eel, and sea lamprey, as well as a variety of native freshwater species. She is interested in fundamentals of fish locomotion as well as in developing biological criteria for selective passage designs at barriers, which allows native species to access upstream habitats while impeding movements of non-native, invasive species.
Luiz G. M. Silva, Website manager, ETH-Zurich, Switzerland
Luiz is a Senior Researcher based at ETH-Zürich, Switzerland in the Institute of Environmental Engineering. He is the PI of the Ecohydraulics Research Group based at the Stocker Lab at ETH-Zurich. Luiz has over 17 years of experience assessing the impacts of hydropower on fish and developing mitigation solutions on a global scale. His research has focused on the design and assessment of fish passage, turbine entrainment and mortality, hydropeaking and larval drift. Related to fish passage, Luiz led and collaborated on several research projects in Brazil, Australia and, most recently, Switzerland.
Jon Bolland, University of Hull, England
Jon specializes in the spatial ecology of freshwater and diadromous fishes in a range of aquatic environments using telemetry, sonar and eDNA techniques at the University of Hull. Jon predominantly studies the impact of anthropogenic activities on fish migration, including low head weirs, fish passage solutions, pumping stations, hydropower schemes and reservoir compensation flow releases. He is the lead of the REsearch and Development of fish and Eel Entrainment Mitigation at pumping stations (REDEEM) project, investigating the spatial distribution of fish and eels in pumped catchments, the processes that lead to entrainment, the effectiveness of existing technologies and develop innovative approaches to minimise entrainment and provide safe downstream passage. Jon has also led investigations into catchment-wide migration of upstream-migrating adult sea lamprey and river lamprey, twaite shad, salmonids and cyprinids.
Prof. Guillermo Roberto, Secretary, Oregon State University, USA
Guillermo is a Freshwater Fish Ecologist with many years of experience studying salmonid behavior and habitat selection in freshwater and estuarine systems. His research interests also span aquatic habitat restoration, land use impacts on fish habitat, integrated watershed management and fish passage. Guillermo has organized previous Fish Passage Conferences and served many times in the Steering Committee and Advisory Board.
Prof. Lee Baumgartner, Gulbali Institute, Charles Sturt University, Australia
Lee is a Professor and Executive Director, Professor of Fisheries and River Management, Gulbali Institute at Charles Sturt University in Australia. He has lived and breathed fish passage research for over 20 years and has worked in government, universities and private industry. His research has been in several broad areas, including fish passage and fish migration, dietary interactions among native fish species, the impact of human disturbance on aquatic ecosystems and, more recently, mitigating hydropower impacts on tropical rivers in SouthEast Asia. Lee’s work has also focused on developing innovative methods for assessment and improving existing fish collection techniques. Much of his work is applied and has fed back into adaptive management strategies, including the development of state and national policy related to fish passage in Australia and South East Asia. Lee presently manages over $10M in research projects and has active global collaborations on fish passage.
Prof. Xiaotao Shi, China Three Gorges University, China
Xiaotao is mainly engaged in teaching and scientific research in the fields of ecological hydraulics and Yangtze River protection, focusing on fish protection research in hydropower projects; research results have been applied to more than 30 water conservancy projects
Dana McCoskey, Department of Energy, USA
Dana is an Environmental Technologies Manager working at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). She has 20 years experience working with fish and wildlife monitoring and research, and 10 years supervisory experience leading complicated field and lab projects. Much of her work has focused on migratory animals (songbirds and fish), threatened and endangered species, community ecology and the impacts of land use practices such as forestry, fire, and renewable energy development (hydropower, marine, and wind) on animal populations. She has been involved with work in many globally important areas for biodiversity. Her current focus is on technology development and managing projects with inventors of environmental monitoring technologies.
Frank Masese, University of Eldoret, Kenya
Frank is a Senior Lecturer of Aquatic Science in the Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Science at the University of Eldoret, Kenya. His research interests lie primarily in freshwater ecosystems in fields of aqueous biogeochemistry and aquatic ecology where he is researching community ecology (invertebrates and fishes), energy sources and flow in food webs, land use influences on nutrients and carbon dynamics, water quality and biomonitoring, watershed management and biodiversity conservation.
Pao Fernandez-Garrido, Open Rivers Programme, Spain
Pao is a Senior Grants Manager working with the Open Rivers Programme. She conducted her master’s practices and thesis on fishway evaluation with PIT and Radio telemetry in Massachusetts while she received training in technical and naturalised fishway designs. Pao worked to develop and implement different projects at the World Fish Migration Foundation related to the recovery of migratory fish populations and the longitudinal connectivity of rivers. She has played a significant role in helping practitioners and other interested parties to start removing barriers in their countries.
Advisory Board
Margaret Lang, Professor Cal Poly Humboldt State University
Margaret is an environmental engineer specializing in environmental fluid mechanics, hydraulic modeling, fish passage through hydraulic structures, and hydrology. She is a full professor in the Environmental Resources Engineering Department at Cal Poly Humboldt State University. Margaret has been involved in past fish passage conferences.
Prof. Guillermo Roberto, Secretary, Oregon State University
Guillermo is a Freshwater Fish Ecologist with many years of experience studying salmonid behavior and habitat selection in freshwater and estuarine systems. His research interests also span aquatic habitat restoration, land use impacts on fish habitat, integrated watershed management and fish passage. Guillermo has organized previous Fish Passage Conferences and served many times in the Steering Committee and Advisory Board.
Brian Bellgraph, Earth Scientist, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Brian is a fisheries biologist specializing in the impacts of human energy development on fishes and has conducted extensive research in hydropower-dominated basins in the U.S. and abroad. He is inspired by innovation and spends much of his time at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) developing new research areas toward improving our Earth-energy systems. Brian helped organize the 2022 Fish Passage Conference hosted by PNNL in Richland, WA.