GLERL RESEARCH - ACCOMPLISHMENTS, PLANS, AND PARTNERSHIPS

IV. Partnerships and Collaborations

GLERL has regular interactions with dozens of organizations, and our scientists regularly collaborate with scientists and program managers from a variety of research institutions and agencies. Complete listings of these are found in the project descriptions in our FY 96-97 Accomplishments and Plans document. The following is an alphabetical list of agencies and institutions with which we have our most significant or long-term partnerships and collaborations:

Academic institutions - in addition to research interactions conducted through our cooperative institute (CILER), GLERL scientists regularly collaborate with individual colleagues at several major academic institutions, including the University of Wisconsin, Ohio State University, Kent State University, University of Michigan, Michigan State University, Grand Valley State University, and the University of Texas.
Ann Arbor Public Schools - GLERL promotes science education through a Partners for Excellence agreement with the Science Department of the Ann Arbor Public School System. Through this partnership, we host high school student interns and sponsor, annually, three Southeast Michigan Regional Science Fair awards for aquatic science. Our staff also participate in classroom presentations from Elementary to High School.
Army Corps of Engineers - GLERL's roots go back to the Corps of Engineers, and close ties have been maintained with the Corps for the entire 22 year history of GLERL. In particular, GLERL hydrologists and physical limnologists interact with Corps staff concerning Great Lakes water levels, river flow models, and general lake circulation.
Coast Guard - the Coast Guard often provides field support (ships and aircraft of opportunity) for GLERL research projects, and GLERL provides scientific expertise, information, products, and advice concerning Great Lakes environmental topics, including trajectory models used for spill response, and search and rescue, ice forecasts and historical ice cover data, and various environmental regulatory issues facing the Coast Guard.
Cooperative Institute for Limnology and Ecosystems Research (CILER) - this cooperative institute between NOAA. the University of Michigan, and Michigan State University, promotes collaborative research between GLERL scientists and academic scientists from throughout the Nation, but primarily from the Great Lakes basin, addressing a wide variety of topics of mutual interest.
Great Lakes Commission - this eight-state compact organization represents the interests of the eight Great Lakes states and is a leader in evaluating and promoting environmental and economic policy in the Great Lakes basin. GLERL scientists work closely with Commission staff to provide scientific expertise and advice on a variety of environmental and policy issues, and serve on several task forces and panels sponsored by the Commission.
International Joint Commission (IJC) - GLERL staff actively participate on boards and committees of this policy recommending bi-national commission with oversight of Great Lakes water quantity, lake levels, water quality, and ecosystem issues for both the United States and Canada.
NOAA/National Research Council/Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Program - GLERL hosts one or two NRC post-doctoral researchers each year, usually for two years.
USEPA - since the mid-1980s the EPA Great Lakes National Program Office, the EPA Large Lakes Research Station, and the EPA Environmental Research Laboratory in Duluth, MN, have worked closely with GLERL scientists to plan, conduct, and/or participate in major multi-institutional, multi-disciplinary research programs, such as the Upper Connecting Channels Study and the Green Bay Mass Balance Program . GLERL scientists are presently involved in the Lake Michigan Mass Balance Program, EMAP, environmental monitoring at the White Lake Superfund Site, and serve as reviewers for the Lake Erie LAMP development.
USGS - GLERL's radionuclide geochemistry and retrospective analysis expertise is the basis for several important collaborations with scientists at the USGS in Atlanta, GA, Woods Hole, MA, St. Petersburg, FL, and Reston, VA involving sediment-derived environmental chronologies related to Florida Bay, the Everglades, the record Midwest floods of 1993, and several contaminated lake sites.
USGS/Biological Resources Division/Great Lakes Science Center (GLSC) - this Department of Interior research facility, also located in Ann Arbor, MI, fulfills the Department's mission to manage and assess the recreational fisheries of the Great Lakes. GLERL's research focuses on the functional processes and relationships affecting the ecosystem, such as nutrient and contaminant recycling, and processes affecting the transfer of energy and material up the food chain, while the GLSC focuses on the structural aspects of the ecosystem, e.g., rocky reefs as fish spawning habitats. GLERL's ecosystem work focuses on the lower part of the food chain: bacteria-phytoplankton-zooplankton-larval fish; the Great Lakes Science Center ecosystem research starts where GLERL's leaves off: larval fish - forage fish - predator fish. Together these two labs cover the entire foodweb and most of the aquatic ecosystem in a complementary fashion.

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