Dr. Michael P. Crosby

B.S., M.S., Old Dominion University
Ph.D., University of Maryland,

Dr. Crosby has over 20 years of diverse research, teaching, science management and leadership endeavors. He has gained experience and expertise in developing, managing and conducting multi-disciplinary research and overseeing programs through his interactions, involvement and partnerships with numerous universities, national and international science and resource management agencies, programs and committees. Many of these endeavors focused on improving the “synthesis, translation and transfer” of science and technical information between research, public policy and stakeholder communities. During the last 13 years, he played an active role in directly leading multi-disciplinary research programs, as well as developing national policy and administrative aspects for our country’s science programs.

On July 27, 2003, Dr. Crosby was appointed to the Senior Executive Service position of Executive Officer for the National Science Board (NSB), and Director of the NSB Office. He came to the NSB from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) where he was serving as the Senior Advisor for International Science Policy in the Under Secretary’s Office of International Affairs at NOAA. His previous positions in NOAA have been: Executive Director for the NOAA Science Advisory Board; National Research Coordinator for Ocean and Coastal Resource Management; and Chief Scientist for Sanctuaries and Reserves. Dr. Crosby also completed a special detail from NOAA to the US Agency for International Development, where he served for two years as the Senior Science Advisor for Marine and Coastal Ecosystems. Prior to joining NOAA, he held numerous faculty positions with the Baruch Institute for Marine Biology and Coastal Research at the University of South Carolina, the Department of Marine Science at Coastal Carolina University, the Graduate Program at the University of Charleston, and Salisbury State University. He has also had previous science positions with the National Marine Fisheries Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health.

He obtained an MS in Biology, with honors, from Old Dominion University and a PhD in Marine-Estuarine-Environmental Sciences at the University of Maryland. He has been awarded research grants from NSF, NOAA, EPA, DOD, USAID, and others. Dr. Crosby has led major national and international, multi-discipline, multi-year research projects, such as a US Man and the Biosphere Program project entitled "Ecological and socio-economic impacts of alternative access management strategies in marine and coastal protected areas", and the US, Israeli and Jordanian joint partnership project entitled “The Red Sea Marine Peace Park Cooperative Research, Monitoring and Management Program”. He is also a member of the Natural Areas Association, Coastal Society, National Shellfisheries Association, Estuarine Research Federation, Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society, The Pacific Congress on Marine Science and Technology, American Association for the Advancement of Science and is a Fellow of the Royal Linnean Society of London.

Dr. Crosby serves as a reviewer and panelist for numerous scientific journals and national and international science panels and advisory committees. He has published over 40 articles in Marine Ecology Progress Series, Journal of Shellfish Research, Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, Diseases of Aquatic Organisms, Marine Biology, Limnology and Oceanography, Ocean and Coastal Management, Natural Areas Journal, Coral Reefs, Oceanography, Aquatic Conservation, various Technical Memoranda Series, and has edited several books and manuals dealing with marine protected areas and coral reefs.