ALEX NICHOLSON

Alex obtained both a Masters in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA in Marketing and Finance.  He has over 45 years experience in all aspects of Mechanical Engineering, including detailed design, finite element modeling, steady state and transient thermal stress, high cycle and low cycle fatigue analysis.  He is experienced in advanced metallurgy, specialty diffusion and plasma spray coatings, new product development, testing and manufacturing, quality assurance, marketing, sales and product support of high-tech industrial products in the U.S. and abroad.  His management experience includes middle and senior management positions, such as VP Marketing and Sales, both in a successful startup company and in large corporations.  Recently as a senior engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, he was involved in the Mars Rover Curiosity and various Space Satellite projects. He has written a long list of technical articles covering a wide range of manufacturing, engineering, and product development.

With respect to projects, current and in the recent past, he has been conducting interdisciplinary studies examining coral communities associated with oil/gas platforms in the northern Gulf of Mexico in association with the U.S. Dept. of Interior Minerals Management Service/Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement for over 10 yrs. He has determined sources and sinks of coral larvae and documented and quantified the expansion of coral populations throughout the northern Gulf via these platforms. He has also conducted deep-water reconnaissance on these platforms and toppled structures used as artificial reefs (“Rigs-to-Reefs” program), and has determined the degree of genetic connectivity between populations of major coral species in this region. He has also developed statistical techniques by which to predict coral bleaching at intermediate SSTs, based on temperature trend data as well as techniques by which to hind-cast periods of seawater cooling through the microstructure of coral skeletons. His present studies include the effects of climate change and global warming on coral reefs at the cellular level within the coral hosts and their symbionts. These effects include changes in global climatic regions and predicted regions of coral extinction. Another current project is coral species that have invaded the Atlantic Ocean from the Pacific, as part of continuing studies on coral dispersal, recruitment processes, and reef-regeneration processes. He has also become heavily involved with environmental issues resulting from BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.