Council Members

Jake Emmert (Vice Chair)
Moody Gardens
Galveston, TX
email: jemmert at moodygardens.org

Term Began: August 1, 2023
Term Expires: August 1, 2026

Jake Emmert is the Dive Safety Officer at Moody Gardens. He oversees more than 2,000 dives annually for both in-house animal husbandry operations and scientific field expeditions. A number of these dives support the management, research and conservation goals of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s Artificial Reef Program, NOAA’s Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary, Florida Atlantic University - Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute and Texas A&M University at Galveston. He is also involved in wildlife rehabilitation, field conservation, conservation education and habitat restoration efforts of Moody Gardens.

Jake earned his bachelor’s in Marine Biology and a master’s in Marine Resources Management from Texas A&M University at Galveston, where he supported research projects in Florida, the Gulf, and Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. Jake is the president of Galveston Rotary, a diving instructor, and an avid outdoors man.

Joanie Steinhaus
Turtle Island Restoration Network
Galveston, TX
email: joanie at tirn.net

Term Began: September 10, 2024
Term Expires: September 10, 2027

Joanie Steinhaus is the Campaign Director for Turtle Island Restoration Network in their efforts to protect the Gulf. She has been involved with formal and informal education programs for over seventeen years, as a public school teacher for three and half years and fourteen years working at informal education sites including the Houston Zoo, Keep Austin Beautiful and the Lower Colorado River Authority. She has extensive experience in the education of youth and adults about stewardship and conservation of our natural resources.

Joanie has worked with a variety of organizations, both locally and state-wide, to advance conservation and sustainability issues. Her diverse knowledge and passion about the environment in the Texas area has shown in her outreach work to local politicians, community groups, homeowner associations and the general public to help them understand the value of protecting the local flora and fauna.

Andy Lewis
Houston, TX
email: alewis at lewis-lawyers.com

Term Began: January 6, 2025
Term Expires: January 6, 2028

Andy is a practicing lawyer and municipal judge with Lewis & Lewis in the Clear Lake area. He is also a scuba instructor for a major dive shop in Houston and owner of Texas Caribbean Charters, which offers dive trips to the sanctuary aboard the dive boat M/V Fling. He also helped to install and maintain sanctuary mooring lines and mooring buoys during pandemic restrictions. 

Kristen Maples
Texas Scuba Adventures
Galveston, TX
email: ksimmons527 at gmail.com

Term Began: January 6, 2025
Term Expires: January 6, 2028

Kristin is co-owner of Texas Scuba Adventures, a dive shop in Galveston. She is also a local diver, working biologist, and dive instructor. Through the dive shop, Kristin oversees dive operations that facilitate community connection and bridge informal science communication to local and visiting divers.

Alex Fogg
Destin-Fort Walton Beach, FL
email:fogg.alex at gmail.com

Term Began: January 6, 2025
Term Expires: January 6, 2028

Alex is the Natural Resources Chief for Destin-Fort Walton Beach tourism in Okaloosa County, Florida.  He received his BS degree from the University of South Carolina in 2011 and began his work career with NOAA in Pascagoula, Mississippi, conducting fisheries surveys following the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. Alex led a Gulf-wide lionfish life history study throughout the region, which eventually became the emphasis of his master’s thesis and earned him an MS degree in Coastal Sciences from the University of Southern Mississippi.

Alex was project manager for the Natural Resource Damage Assessment Artificial Reef Creation and Restoration Project with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Artificial Reef Program. The project was the largest artificial reef project in the history of Florida’s artificial reef program and, upon completion, the program deployed more than 3,000 new artificial reefs across northwest Florida.

Currently, Alex is involved in coastal and ecotourism centered projects ranging from sea turtle conservation initiatives to beach restoration, waterway safety, artificial reef creation, and invasive lionfish management. Alex now manages the most active artificial reef program in Florida and since 2020 has deployed more than 14 large vessels and thousands of tons of environmentally friendly reef material to create world class dive destinations while also creating essential habitat for species of fish that are important to the ecosystem. Alex also organizes the largest lionfish tournament in the world, the Emerald Coast Open, and since 2019 has removed more than 89,000 invasive lionfish. He is an avid recreational and scientific diver, as well as lionfish hunter, with broad experience in offshore field operations and technical diving capabilities.

Chris Ledford
Texas A&M Galveston
Galveston, TX
email: chris.ledford at tamu.edu

Term Began: November 1, 2022
Term Expires: November 1, 2025

Chris Ledford is an Assistant Instructional Professor and the Scientific Diving Safety Officer (DSO) at Texas A&M University Galveston (TAMUG). In addition to providing program oversight for any research diving conducted at TAMUG, he is also a primary instructor for underwater photography, Divemaster, Scientific Diving, and open circuit technical dive courses. Chris was previously the DSO for the Artificial Reef Program for Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, conducting biological sampling on offshore standing and reefed oil and gas platforms in the Gulf.

Prior to moving to Texas, Chris worked in the Turks and Caicos Islands, Bahamas, Hawaii, and California as a dive guide, underwater photographer, boat captain, and instructor. Chris has a Master’s degree in Marine Biology from Texas A&M University Corpus Christi where he conducted a comparison of Mexican Caribbean coral reef communities in the Sian Kaan Biosphere Reserve, Quintana Roo, Mexico, focusing on species diversity, abundance and dominance. His Bachelor’s degree is from Humboldt State University. 

Sandra Metoyer
University of Houston Clear Lake
Clear Lake, TX
email: metoyer at uhcl.edu

Term Began: August 1, 2023
Term Expires: August 1, 2026

Dr. Sandra Metoyer joined the Environmental Institute of Houston at University of Houston Clear Lake in May of 2024 as the Institute’s third executive director since its founding in 1991. Dr. Metoyer has over 13 years of experience in administering and directing projects in higher education. Most recently, she served as director of ED Title V Pathways, director/co-PI of the NSF HSI Institutional Transformation Project at Galveston College, and as visiting faculty at Texas A&M University at Galveston. Dr. Metoyer holds a Ph.D. in geography and an M.S. in geosciences from Texas A&M University.

She has developed and initiated major STEM Education projects between the National Science Foundation and Galveston College and is a former Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary Down Under Out Yonder (DUOY) workshop participant. She has also organized sanctuary lionfish dissections for Galveston College STEM students.

Michelle Zapp Sluis
Texas A&M University
Galveston, TX
email: zappsluis at tamug.edu

Term Began: August 1, 2023
Term Expires: August 1, 2026

Michelle is a Research Scientist for the Gulf Research Institute for Highly Migratory Species at Texas A&M University at Galveston. Her research has focused on utilizing both natural tags (otolith chemistry) and acoustic tags to examine the population connectivity and migration patterns of red snapper, groupers, tarpon, and tunas. Through positions at both Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi and Texas A&M University at Galveston, Michelle has been a Guest Lecturer, Teaching Assistant, and Lecturer for Fisheries Ecology and Marine Ecology courses. She has participated in past FGBNMS Lionfish Invitationals and assisted with acoustic tagging of reef fish within the sanctuary.

Kelli Acosta
Galveston ISD
Galveston, TX
email: kelliacosta at gisd.org

Term Began: September 10, 2024
Term Expires: September 10, 2027

Open Seat

Shane Cantrell
Galveston Sea Ventures
Galveston, TX
email: shane.cantrell at me.com

Term Began: August 1, 2023
Term Expires: August 1, 2026

Capt. Shane Cantrell has over 20 years of fishing experience. He is owner and operator of Galveston Sea Ventures, a deep sea and offshore fishing charter business, located in Galveston, Texas. He received his B.S. in Marine Fisheries from TAMU-Galveston and then worked as a fishery observer on commercial fishing vessels in the Gulf. Capt. Cantrell is actively involved in the fishery management process with the Gulf Council serving on the steering committee of the Marine Resource Education Program and on the Data Collection Advisory Panel. Additionally, he is the treasurer of the Charter Fisherman’s Association.

Sepp Haukebo (Chair)
Environmental Defense Fund
Galveston, TX
email: shaukebo at edf.org

Term Began: November 1, 2022
Term Expires: November 1, 2025

Sepp is a program manager at the Environmental Defense Fund where he focuses on researching and implementing solutions that balance access and sustainability of our ocean’s most important resources. He earned his B.S. in Marine Biology from Texas A&M University at Galveston, where he researched distribution of juvenile grouper abundance across FGBNMS. He also has an M.S. in Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences from Texas A&M main campus, where he investigated underwater cave ecology and nutrient sources in the Yucatan Peninsula. Sepp's other research adventures range from tagging blue marlin in the Gulf to identifying rare cave species in the deepest underwater cave in the United States. In addition to his scientific background, Sepp has been an informal educator of marine sciences since 2002, a lifelong passion that led him to a Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship with NOAA’s Office of Education in 2013. He is also a long-time angler, surfer, and diver, spending any free time getting his wife and two daughters on the water.

Don Craig
BP
Houston, TX
email: donald.craig at bp.com

Term Began: November 1, 2022
Term Expires: November 1, 2025

Don has been employed at BP since 2012, and in 2019 assumed product owner roles for two technology themes--distributed fiber optic sensing and ocean energy systems. Prior to joining BP, Don was with Aker Solutions for 8 years, as vice president.

Don earned his B.S. in Oceanographic Technology from Florida Institute of Technology with additional academic studies from the IMD, University of Manchester, and George Washington University. He enjoys scuba diving with his two sons and in 2022 dove in both Florida Keys and Flower Garden Banks national marine sanctuaries.

A highlight of Don's career occurred in 1998, when he and two of his colleagues at Oceaneering were awarded the Environmental Hero Award from NOAA, for authoring the “Emergency Response & Recovery Plan for the USS Monitor” within the United States’ first national marine sanctuary.

Scott Hickman
Circle H Charters
Galveston, TX
email: listodos at gmail.com

Term Began: September 10, 2024
Term Expires: September 10, 2027

Capt. Scott Hickman is the owner/operator of Circle H Outfitters and Charters. He is a full time hunting and fishing guide with 35 years experience specializing in Cobia, Snapper, Amberjack and King Mackerel trips. Scott is actively involved on the Gulf Council's Coral Advisory Panel (co-chair) and its Data Collection Advisory Panel. Scott’s top priority is finding solutions for climate challenges to fisheries and ocean ecosystems in the Gulf. He is a founding board member of the Charter Fisherman’s Association. 

Scott attended both Texas Tech University and Sam Houston State University studying Wildlife Management and Criminal Justice. Capt. Hickman also served in the United States Marine Corps and Texas National Guard. He was recognized as the FGBNMS Volunteer of the Year in 2016, and received the GCFI Peter Gladding conservation award in 2017. In addition to being a full time hunting and fishing guide and federal fisheries policy consultant, he is as a liaison between fishers and the offshore wind energy industry.

Additional affiliations: Texas Sea Grant Advisory Committee (Jan 2020-Dec 2024, Chair 2021-2024), Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute's Gladding Conservation Committee.

Diego Gil-Agudelo
Research Program Manager
NASA–University of Alabama
Huntsville, AL
email: diego.gil-agudelo at nasa.gov

Term Began: November 1, 2022
Term Expires: November 1, 2025

Diego has worked in conservation biology for over two decades, starting as a coral reef ecologist, then expanding his focus to other ecosystems. In 2010, after the Deep-Water Horizon disaster, Diego developed a program to study and help minimize the impacts of offshore oil and gas exploration. He has worked extensively with government, academia, and local communities to develop conservation strategies for a variety of natural resources. Most recently, Diego worked as the Director of Research Operations at Texas A&M University at Galveston, then LightHawk.

In his free time, Diego enjoys the outdoors, traveling with his wife to new destinations, and getting to know other cultures.

Michael Dance
Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge, LA
email: mdance1 at lsu.edu

Term Began: August 1, 2023
Term Expires: August 1, 2026

Michael is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences at Louisiana State University. His Fisheries and Movement Ecology Lab conducts research on movement ecology, fisheries science, population connectivity, stock assessment, seascape ecology, and habitat use.

Alicia Caporaso
Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM)
New Orleans, LA
email: alicia.caporaso at boem.gov

Jasmine Baloch
Bureau of Safety & Environmental Enforcement (BSEE)
New Orleans, LA
email: jasmine.baloch at bsee.gov

Michael T. Lee
United States Geological Survey (USGS)
Shenandoah, TX
email: mtlee at usgs.gov

Open Seat

Charrish Stevens
National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS)
Galveston, TX
email: charrish.stevens at noaa.gov

Roy Fisher
National Marine Fisheries Service, Office of Law Enforcement (OLE)
Galveston, TX
email: roy.fisher at noaa.gov

Rachel Parmer
Texas Parks & Wildlife Department
Dickinson, TX
email: rachel.parmer at tpwd.texas.gov

Laura Picariello
Texas Sea Grant College Program
Galveston, TX
email: lpicariello at tamu.edu

LT Jackson Morton
New Orleans, LA
email: jackson.p.morton at uscg.mil

Taylor Galaviz
taylor.galaviz@noaa.gov