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STAR Scientist Receives Lifetime Achievement Award
(March, 2003) Science to Achieve Results (STAR) grantee, Dr. Theodore J. Smayda, has received the Yasumoto Lifetime Achievement Award 
from the International Society for the Study of Harmful Algae (ISSHA). The award, presented during a ceremony at the Society's annual conference in October, recognized Dr. Smayda's contributions over more than four decades to understanding of the phenomenon of algal blooms.
Dr. Smayda's STAR grant research focuses on the devastating impacts of harmful algal blooms on public health and local/regional economies, blooms which continue to increase domestically and globally. Specifically, Dr. Smayda's team is analyzing 38 years of data on the dynamics of 18 problem algal blooms in Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island. The goal of Dr. Smayda's STAR work in the Bay is to determine the mechanisms causing harmful algal blooms to better describe their long-term patterns, trends, and variability. The researchers believe that many factors, involving a wide variety of both physical and biological reasons, are causing these blooms. The key question his research asks is whether human and/or climatic influences are the primary reasons for the blooms.
Dr. Smayda is an active research faculty member at the University of Rhode Island, where his laboratory research focuses on phytoplankton suspension, species succession in marine environments, and population dynamics related to diatom and harmful algal blooms. Of his lifetime achievement award, Dr. Smayda says, "I have never considered this work a job but rather, a deep passion for phytoplankton ecology and for the microscopic algae which are not only aesthetically beautiful but of great importance to the functioning of the ocean."
To learn more about Dr. Smayda's STAR research, see: "Dynamics, Variability and Patterns of Harmful and Red Tide Bloom-species in Narragansett Bay: Ecological Analysis of a 38-year Time Series."
Additional information on the STAR program can be found at the National Center for Environmental Research. For more information, contact Estella Waldman at Waldman.Estella@epa.gov.