As the Reserve Manager of
Old Woman Creek National Estuarine Research Reserve, Dr. Janice Kerns oversees an integrated program of research and education that promotes the sustainable use and protection of Great Lakes estuaries, coastal wetlands, and their watersheds. She also acts as the Ohio Department of Natural Resources lead for the
H2Ohio Wetland Monitoring Program whose mission is to assess the effectiveness of nutrient removal within restored wetlands. Her career and academic background have focused on fisheries populations dynamics, food web ecology, habitat restoration, and sustainable freshwater fisheries. Her approach has been to use a combination of public input together with long-term monitoring data to identify and answer management problems and questions. Since joining the Great Coastal Assembly in June of 2020, she has valued the information exchange and expert feedback from its diverse membership and relies on this network to provide support for existing and new partnerships.