Dr. Stephen Gittings
Science Director
NOAA’s National Marine Sanctuary Program
Silver Spring

Dr. Steve Gittings is Science Coordinator for NOAA's National Marine Sanctuary Program. He facilitates research in the nation's twelve marine sanctuaries, with emphasis on strategic planning, program development for regional and system-wide monitoring and research, and partnership-building. Between 1992 and 1998, he was Manager of the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary. Prior to 1992, he was an Assistant Research Scientist in the Geochemical and Environmental Research Group at Texas A&M University. He remains on the graduate faculty of Texas A&M. Gittings received a B.S. in Biology at Westminster College (New Wilmington, PA) in 1979. He received M.S. (1983) and Ph.D. (1988) degrees in Oceanography at Texas A&M University (College Station, TX).

Dr. Gittings has conducted studies of various marine habitats in the Florida Keys, Gulf of Mexico, Bahamas, Bonaire, Aruba, Saba, and the Arabian Gulf. His research specialties are in coral and other reef biology and ecology, biofouling ecology, taxonomic and biogeographic relationships of Cirripedia (barnacles), and he has experience in deep-sea ecological investigations. His field experience includes over 100 scientific research cruises, over 1100 scientific dives, the direction of many scientific diving operations, ROV operations (over 40 dives), and submersible use.

In early 1980, he became involved in the biological characterization of the Flower Garden Banks and, with support from NOAA, investigated the hard-bottom fauna of the East Flower Garden Brine Seep. The work centered on a description of a unique, sulfide-based ecosystem and the effects of the system (chemical stresses and food enrichment) on surrounding hard-bottom communities. Dr. Gittings also contributed as a taxonomic specialist on Cirripedia (barnacles) to the topographic features characterization study. In 1983, he undertook a study off Cameron, Louisiana on the effects of a brine discharge of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve Program on the biofouling community of surrounding waters. He became interested in the taxonomic and biogeographic relationships of the Cirripedia and has written a field guide to the barnacles of the Gulf of Mexico. Other biofouling research included investigative work for the National Transportation Safety Board following a fatal fishing vessel/pipeline accident off the Louisiana coast.

Between 1985 and 1990, Gittings conducted a NOAA-supported study to assess the damage and recovery of a coral reef in the upper Florida Keys (Molasses Reef) after a freighter grounding. In 1990 and 1991, he conducted damage assessments for the Department of Justice on two other ship grounding sites in the Florida Keys. He also conducted field work for two oil companies in an environmental assessment of benthic habitats off Aruba, Netherlands Antilles.

Dr. Gittings also coordinated biological surveys of topographic features of the continental shelf off Mississippi and Alabama and conducted over 40 ROV dives on deep reefs on the outer continental shelf. He was also involved in a similar study in Exuma Sound, in the Bahamas, using submersibles. He was the Principal Investigator and Project Manager on an MMS-sponsored project designed for long-term biological monitoring at the East and West Flower

Garden Banks, two coral reefs in the northwestern Gulf of Mexico. Monitoring studies on the banks involve repetitive and random photographic techniques to track reef coral populations and coral cover, as well as sequential measurements to monitor coral growth rates. As sanctuary manager, he also facilitated studies on the banks relating to coral genetics, coral diseases, assessment of the effects of anomalous temperature regimes on coral health, coral reproduction, and paleomonitoring using coral skeletons.