Gwynne Schnaittacher is the Observer Program Liaison with the NOAA Fisheries Alaska Fisheries Science Center Fisheries Monitoring and Analysis Division. Gwynne hails from the East Coast of the United States where her love of the marine world was declared at a young age when she decided she wanted to be a dolphin trainer. In reality, her career began in field-based marine ecological research and transitioned to fisheries management in 2004 when she became a full-time fisheries observer with the NOAA Fisheries Northeast Fisheries Observer Program. She hopped coasts in 2012 to fill the role of the Observer Program Liaison at the North Pacific Observer Program. Her forte and expertise are with logistically intensive operations, focusing on observer support, data quality, and oversight of observer provider operations, policies, and regulations. In her free time, she loves being outdoors with her four-legged co-pilots either in the mountains or on the water.
Jennifer Cahalan is a statistician with the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission who works with the NOAA Fisheries Alaska Fisheries Science Center, Fisheries Monitoring and Analysis Division on projects related to monitoring design and catch estimation. Ms. Cahalan is involved in many aspects of the Alaska Observer Program including methods for the deployment of observers, at-sea and shoreside sampling methods, integration of electronic monitoring, catch and bycatch estimation processes, and fisheries sampling and estimation research.