Chesapeake Research Consortium Names Denice Wardrop as its New Executive Director

Annapolis, Maryland – The Chesapeake Research Consortium (CRC) has officially chosen its next Executive Director: Denice Wardrop of Pennsylvania State University. Wardrop will be taking over for William Ball, who has served as Executive Director since 2015 and will retire officially at the end of 2019.

“Denice was selected from a strong group of finalists given her career experience, her long-term association with CRC committees and activities, and her creativity in identifying corporate support for science,” said Fred Dobbs, Chair of CRC’s Board of Trustees.

Wardrop has served as a faculty member at Penn State for 22 years, pursuing research on the development of condition and functional indicators for a wetland, stream, and estuarine ecosystems, the effect of climate and land cover change on the ecosystem services that they provide, and the design and use of monitoring and assessment information. Her expertise in wetland ecology led to her invitation of membership on the 7th National Academies Committee on Independent Scientific Review of Everglades Restoration Progress (CISRERP), on which she currently serves.

Her comprehensive evaluation of the Chesapeake Bay Monitoring Program was recognized with a formal commendation by then-Governor of Virginia Timothy Kaine, and the Mid-Atlantic Wetland Workgroup, which she founded, performed the first regional assessment of wetland condition and received a US EPA Best Practice Award.

She served as the Founding Director of Penn State’s Sustainability Institute (SI), aiming to connect faculty, staff, students, and community with sustainability practices. She helped create a model corporate-university partnership with PepsiCo to support investment and programming, and significantly enhanced the profile of Penn State.

In her most recent role as a returning faculty member in the Geography department, with a concurrent

leadership role in building a new Office of Engaged Scholarship in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, Wardrop works with both undergraduate and graduate students, teaching a class on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and advising three PhD students.

Outside of Penn State, Wardrop is well-versed in CRC activities, including serving as the Chair-Elect and then the Chair of the Chesapeake Bay Program Science and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC) from 2007 to 2011.

“Denice is well known to our Chesapeake community through her dedicated involvement in many important issues at STAC quarterly meetings and workshops,” said Bill Ball, outgoing Executive Director. “I’m delighted to know that the CRC will be in such capable hands moving forward and look forward to facilitating as smooth a transition as possible over the next few months.”

Ball and Wardrop will work closely together over the next several months during their transitions. Wardrop will start full time on January 1^st, 2020.

Wardrop holds a PhD in Ecology from Penn State and an M.S. in Environmental Sciences from the University of Virginia, where she also completed her undergraduate degree.

The Chesapeake Research Consortium is a nonprofit association of seven research and education institutions around the Chesapeake Bay region. CRC supports cross-institutional research, Bay management, and student and young scientist development. Our current members are Johns Hopkins University, Old Dominion University, Penn State University, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, University System of Maryland, Virginia Institute of Marine Science, and Virginia Tech. For more information, please contact Bill Ball.