Dear CMS Alumni and Friends,
Greetings from the College of Marine Science! We’re excited to restart our newly designed
newsletter with this issue, and hope you enjoy it. We’ve experienced a kaleidoscope
of changes here at CMS since you last heard from us. Ready? Here we go (in no particular
order)!
• We welcomed two new faculty, Dr. Nancy Williams (Chemical Oceanography) and Dr. Alastair Graham (Geological Oceanography).
• The legendary Linda Kelbaugh retired after 26 years of service as executive administrative
specialist, and we welcomed Renate Jurden as our new Assistant to the Dean. Renate
joins us from the University of New Hampshire.
• Dr. John Paul joined the ranks of Retired-Emeritus and is running his company PureMolecular.
• Howard Rutherford secured a new role as Senior Director of Development for USF, now spending most of
his time on the Tampa campus. Laurie Scott joined us as our new Development Director.
Laurie hails from the Baker Institute for Public Policy in Houston.
• USF president Judy Genshaft retired after 19 years of service. Steve Currall (from Southern Methodist University) is our new president with the unenviable task
of leading us through an effort to consolidate USF into one now “preeminent” university.
• USF is now in the top 50 public universities in the US.
• Kristen Kusek, CMS Class of 1998, boomeranged back to St. Pete and USF CMS, now
serving as our Science Communication Strategist. She joined CMS from the Earthwatch
Institute in Boston.
• Xinfeng Liang and Dr. Yun Li have made a big move to the University of Delaware.
We will miss them dearly and wish them all the best! We didn’t let Xinfeng go without
us covering his latest paper first.
• And, I announced that I will step down from my role as Dean on June 30, 2020 after
nine and a half years of service. I’m thrilled to return to my research roots and
will become part of the USF faculty. A search for the new dean will commence shortly.
We’ve also experienced tremendous heartache. We lost two of our CMS family members this past summer. Chris Schwint, our Budget Director, passed away July 21st, having suffered a heart attack. Anita Thompson, our Unit Research Administrator, passed away July 27th after her courageous, 11-year fight against cancer. We commit to ensuring their spirits remain alive within the CMS and miss each Anita and Chris dearly. If you’d like to add to donations we’ve made in their honor, please visit these links.
Life is short, that’s for sure — and we are grateful to be back in touch with you,
our CMS family, both near and far.
Sincerely,
Jacqueline Dixon
Dean, College of Marine Science
jdixon@usf.edu
View the October 2019 Rising Tides Newsletter