Lisa Taylor Ballance is an American marine scientist who is Director Marine Mammal Institute and Endowed Chair for Marine Mammal Research at

Oregon State University Oregon State University (OSU) is a public land-grant, research university in Corvallis, Oregon. OSU offers more than 200 undergraduate-degree programs along with a variety of graduate and doctoral degrees. It has the 10th largest engineering c ...

Early life and education

Ballance studied biology as an undergraduate student at the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is t ...

. Ballance completed her master's studies in marine science at

San Jose State University San José State University (San Jose State or SJSU) is a public university in San Jose, California. Established in 1857, SJSU is the oldest public university on the West Coast and the founding campus of the California State University (CSU) sy ...

. Her research considered the ecology and behavior of the bottlenose dolphin. She moved to

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California S ...

for her doctoral research, where she studied the ecology of tropical seabirds in the Eastern Pacific. During her doctorate she joined the

Association for Women in Science The Association for Women in Science (AWIS) was founded in 1971 at the annual Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) meeting. The organization aims to combat job discrimination, lower pay, and professional isolation. The ...

. She was a postdoctoral researcher at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Research and career

NOAA ecologist Lisa Ballance with killer whale

Ballance joined the

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (abbreviated as NOAA ) is an United States scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce that forecasts weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditio ...

(NOAA). Her research has focused on seabirds and cetaceans. She held various positions at the NOAA, including Chair of the Pacific Seabird Group, Lead of Cetacean Ecology and Chief of Stenella Abundance Research. In 2013, Balance was appointed Chair of the NOAA Fisheries National Seabird Program. The overarching aim of the program was to mitigate bycatch (the unwanted fish caught by commercial fishing nets) and to promote seats as indicates of ecosystem health. She led the Eastern Tropical Pacific Research Program, which was responsible for the “Dolphin Safe” label found on canned tuna. Ballance was made Professor of Fisheries and Wildlife and Director of the Marine Mammal Research Institute at

in 2019. She led expeditions to see beaked whales and dolphins. She was awarded a $2 million grant to collect information about the distribution of marine mammals.

Selected publications

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ballance, Lisa Year of birth missing (living people) Living people San Jose State University alumni University of California, Los Angeles alumni Oregon State University faculty Marine biologists 21st-century American biologists 21st-century American women scientists 20th-century American biologists 20th-century American women scientists American women marine biologists