Scott Large, Ph.D.

Scott Large is Chief of the Ecosystem Dynamics and Assessment Branch, which provides guidance and tools to facilitate Ecosystem-based Fisheries Management for the Northeastern United States.

Before moving to NOAA, he was a Professional Officer at the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) in Copenhagen, Denmark. At ICES, he worked as a project manager for the Advisory Department and sought to make consistent, transparent, and automated products to support ecosystem advice and advice for fishing opportunities.

Scott is broadly interested in understanding the dynamics between human activities and ecosystem structure and function. One of his favorite areas of research is delineating ecosystem thresholds and he has explored empirical methods to identify the level of fishing (or other human activities) and the environment that results in threshold responses in ecosystem state. These tipping-points are important for ecosystem-based management because they can be used to inform reference points or decision criteria for management action.