"Make a difference."
The Harte Research Institute celebrated its 20th anniversary in September 2020, and that occasion has turned out to be more than an important milestone in the growth and evolution of the institute. In August Dr. David Yoskowitz assumed the position of Senior Executive Director of the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies. Yoskowitz, who has served as HRI’s Chair for Socio-Economics and Associate Director, is a seasoned researcher and academic and a longtime leader on the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi campus who previously served a term as Chief Economist at NOAA.
We also continued in our campaign to expand the institute’s reach and research capabilities, hiring Dr. Dale Gawlik as our new Endowed Chair for Conservation and Biodiversity and Dr. Xinping Hu as our new HRI Chair for Ecosystem Science and Modeling. Gawlik, an expert in water bird ecology, comes to us from an accomplished tenure at Florida Atlantic University. Hu, a longtime HRI collaborator and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi associate professor, will help us to continue to advance our work examining the environmental impacts of climate change on our coastal ecosystems.
Our former director Dr. Larry McKinney has stayed on at the institute to assume the role of HRI Chair for Gulf Strategies where he will be looking at long-term environmental trends in the Gulf and helping launch HRI’s oyster conservation initiative. Dr. Paul Montagna became the HRI Chair for HydroEcology, where he will be focusing on his passion of researching freshwater inflows into our bays and estuaries and the impact on the environment and economy. We’re excited for you to get to know our new Gulf of Mexico research team.
HRI features nine research groups spanning scientific, social science, policy and legal disciplines, each with projects specific to their areas of study. Together our researchers collaborate to solve even bigger problems that face the Gulf of Mexico.