Who is VENUS?

• The VENUS Team
• The VENUS Users Advisory Committee
• Contact VENUS
• Send feedback to VENUS
• Signup for the VENUS Newsletter

See also:

• Job Opportunities at VENUS
• Partners & Sponsors

The VENUS Team

• Kevin Bartlett, Data Services Developer
• Marja Blase, Project Administrator
• Ken Denman, Chief Scientist
• Richard Dewey, Associate Director, Research
• John Dorocicz, Acoustic Systems Developer
• Denis Hedji, Instrument Manager
• Marlene Jeffries, Observational Data Specialist
• Nikolai Korniyuk, Manager, Communications and Marketing
• Johanna MacLeod, Website Developer
• Paul Macoun, VENUS Phase II Project Manager
• Adrian Round, Associate Director Engineering & Operations
• Chris Sundstrom, VENUS Phase II Engineer
• Dr. Verena Tunnicliffe, Founding Director, Canada Research Chair in Deep Oceans
• Jaklyn Vervynck, Data Manager

Kevin Bartlett, Data Services Developer

Kevin has a B.A. in History and a B.Sc. in Physics (with a minor in Physical Oceanography), both from UVic. Prior to joining VENUS, he worked at UVic’s School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, the University of Hawaii and the Institute of Ocean Sciences in Sidney. His work at these institutions ranged from data analysis to maintaining and deploying oceanographic instruments.

Email: kpb@uvic.ca

Marja Blase, Project Administrator

Marja keeps the office on track. She has managed a variety of small offices in the past and continues to tackle the challenges that make this one work well. She has a diploma in Greenhouse Horticulture from the Netherlands, so Ocean Science is a bit of a leap, but certainly a very interesting one!

Email: marjab@uvic.ca

Dr. Ken Denman, Chief Scientist

Ken joined the VENUS team in January 2011 to develop the new water column theme in VENUS and to broaden collaborations with other scientists. His research interests address the effects of climate change on marine ecosystems and biogeochemical cycles, in particular: how will marine ecosystems adapt to a future ocean that will be warmer, more stratified, less oxygenated and more acidic?

For the last 10 years Ken worked at the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis on campus, before that at the Institute of Ocean Sciences in Sidney BC, and before that at the Bedford Institution of Oceanography in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. He was a Coordinating Lead Author in the Second (1996) and Fourth (2007) IPCC assessments of climate change. In a previous life, he obtained a PhD in Physics and Oceanography from UBC.

Email: denmank@uvic.ca
Web: Homepage

Dr. Richard Dewey, Associate Director, Research

Richard is the VENUS Associate Director, Research. Richard is responsible for coordinating and assisting all researchers using the VENUS coastal network, from planning to publication. He has a B.Sc. in Physics from UVic and a Ph.D. in Oceanography from UBC. His research interests are coastal flows, mixing, turbulence, waves, and tides. He has conducted research throughout the Pacific from Japan to California, and along the B.C., Alaskan, and Arctic coasts. He has used a variety of profilers and deployed more than 50 moorings. He is author of the Mooring Design and Dynamics MATLAB package, and specializes in time series analysis.

Email: rdewey@uvic.ca

Dr. Richard Dewey on the CCGS John P. Tully during the deployment of the Saanich Inlet VIP, Camera Platform, and Hydrophone Array in February 2006. © VENUS

John Dorocicz, Acoustic Systems Developer

John is an engineer who works part-time for VENUS developing and maintaining our hydrophone systems as well as analyzing the hydrophone data.

Email: jdorocic@uvic.ca
Web: Homepage

Denis Hedji, Instrument Manager

Denis is working as an Instrument Manager for instruments on VENUS. He focuses on the testing, maintaining, recovering/deploying, integrating instruments, building/modifying support structures/platforms, and building in-house systems. His background has involved oceanographic instrumentation testing, manufacturing, electronics, business, and mechanical.

Denis was also involved in NEPTUNE Canada in 2009.

Email: dhedji@uvic.ca

Marlene Jeffries, Observational Data Specialist

Marlene joined the VENUS team in April 2010 as the Observational Data Specialist responsible for data integrity. She has a B.Sc. in Honours Physics from Simon Fraser University and a M.Sc. in Physical Oceanography from the University of Washington. Prior to joining VENUS, she was involved in global biogeochemical research at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences.

Email: jeffries@uvic.ca

Nikolai Korniyuk, Manager, Communications and Marketing

Nikolai Korniyuk joined the VENUS team in August 2007 as Manager, Communications and Marketing. His major focus is to liaise with the research community, general public and government agencies, highlighting the unique benefits of VENUS.

He comes with background in international communications and was in charge of promotion and facilitation of international research collaboration in Oceanography and Fisheries off the Pacific coast in the Far East Russia. His focus on development and communication landed him several assignments in a number of multinational non-profit projects, and later led to a successful career in shipping.

Native of Vladivostok (Russia), Nikolai holds Master’s degree in Public Administration from the University of Colorado at Denver, MA in Communications from the Far East National University, and BSc from the Far East Technical University of Fisheries.

Email: nnk@uvic.ca

Johanna MacLeod, Web and Data Feature Developer

Johanna started working at VENUS in September, 2010. Johanna brings over ten years experience in website, e-learning, and interactive media development to the project. She has a B.Sc. in Linguistics from University of California, San Diego. Prior to joining VENUS she developed educational game software, web sites, and interactive media and training projects in the Healthcare, Pharmaceutical, and Medical Communications industries.

Email: johanna@uvic.ca

Paul Macoun, VENUS Phase II Project Manager

Paul is managing the latest series of projects funded through the CFI Leading Edge Fund. These include Coastal Radar stations in the Strait of Georgia, instruments on BC Ferries, a Profiling station in Saanich Inlet, Gliders, and a host of new bottom mounted sensor systems.

Paul brings a varied background in engineering and oceanography to the project. He has field experience in marine seismics and oceanography, and several years of industrial engineering experience. Paul has a B.A.Sc. Mechanical Engineering from the University of Waterloo (1995), and a M.Sc. Physical Oceanography (2003) from the University of Victoria.

Email: pmacoun@uvic.ca

Adrian Round, Associate Director Engineering & Operations

Adrian is the VENUS Associate Director Engineering & Operations and is responsible for delivering the VENUS infrastructure that will allow the science users to effectively conduct their research. An Electrical Engineer with an MSc in Guided Missile Systems, Adrian served with the Canadian Navy in a number of sea and shore command appointments before joining VENUS in 2003.

Email: around@uvic.ca

Adrian Round with Verena Tunnicliffe aboard the WAVE VENTURE during the deployment of the VENUS array, February 2006.

Chris Sundstrom, VENUS Phase II Engineer

Chris is responsible for designing the mechanical hardware for the Phase II projects and for adapting new instruments to the existing infrastructure. Chris has a B.Eng. in Mechanical Engineering from University of Victoria. He brings extensive industry experience to the team with a background in environmental acoustics, oceanographic equipment design and manufacture, field studies and instrument deployment. Particular strengths include marine winches, subsea lighting, lasers and cameras, pressure housing design and seawater-instrument corrosion interactions.

Email: csundstr@uvic.ca

Dr. Verena Tunnicliffe, Founding Director, Canada Research Chair in Deep Oceans

Professor in Biology and in Earth & Ocean Sciences
As an enthusiast of marine biology, Verena Tunnicliffe has worked on mudflats, coral reefs, fjords, seamounts and deep-sea environments. Her work focuses on animal adaptations to the challenges of the physical, chemical and geologic world. Her work on hot vent communities has included an examination of how animal vent faunas around the world are related. She is currently Director of VENUS where she is responsible for the overall mandate, project funding and accountability. She finds electronics troubling but remains confident they will help in biological studies.

Performed as Director of VENUS in 2001-2012.

Email: verenat@uvic.ca
Web: Homepage

Jaklyn Vervynck, Data Manager

Jaklyn Vervynck has a B.Sc. in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Victoria and started working full time for VENUS in August, 2005. She is responsible for generating standardized data products and monitoring VENUS data streams on a daily basis. Jaklyn develops scripts and routines using MATLAB (a mathematical programming language) to query and format data for web display (see our Data section). Jaklyn is the VENUS representative in the DMAS group.

Email: jverv@uvic.ca

Jaklyn Vervynck aboard the CCGS John P. Tully during the Saanich Install in February 2006.

The VENUS Users Advisory Committee

Ocean Networks Canada manages two cabled observing “networks” on behalf of the Canadian research community. VENUS operates in the waters of the Salish Sea with a user base (as of February 2011) of about 40 collaborating researchers and over 400 data users worldwide. The VENUS Users Advisory Committee (VUAC) will advise and liaise with the VENUS Executive during current operations and the future expansion of the Salish Sea observing system. The major purpose is to provide a parallel and independent conduit for maintaining interactions between VENUS and Users in the scientific and operational communities. This interaction involves a number of specific responsibilities, whose priority ranking may change from time to time by mutual consent.

Member	Affiliation	Email
Dr. Jay Cullen	University of Victoria	jcullen@uvic.ca
Dr. Alex Hay	Dalhousie University	alex.hay@dal.ca
Dr. Gwyn Lintern	NRCan – Pacific Geoscience Centre	Gwyn.Lintern@NRCan-RNCan.gc.ca
Dr. Rich Pawlowicz (Chair)	University of British Columbia	rpawlowicz@eos.ubc.ca
Dr. Angelica Peña	DFO – Institute of Ocean Sciences	angelica.pena@dfo-mpo.gc.ca
Dr. Mark Zacharias	Assistant Deputy Minister, Ministry of Environment	mark.zacharias@gov.bc.ca
VENUS Ex-officio
Ken Denman	Chief Scientist, VUAC Main Contact	denmank@uvic.ca
Richard Dewey	Associate Director, Research	rdewey@uvic.ca
Nikolai Korniyuk	Manager, Marketing and Communications	nnk@uvic.ca

Contact VENUS

Feedback

Newsletter