Technical Support
The Outstanding Staff awards are chosen by nominations received by the Awards Committee from all faculty, staff, and students at VIMS. They are awarded in the categories of Facilities/Safety/Trades, Technical Support, and Administrative Support.
The winner of the 2020 Outstanding Employee for Technical Support is PG Ross.
PG began working at VIMS in 1998 and has filled many roles at the Eastern Shore Lab since that time, including 2 years as Acting Director. PG continues to facilitate resources and logistics for collaborations among ESL and VIMS main-campus personnel. He is also a highly motivated researcher and co-PI on numerous grants involving oyster restoration and finfish habitat use, and took the initiative this past year to get a monitoring program established in Bradford Bay with private funds.
He is continually looking for ways to push his research and knowledge further. These efforts have resulted in a variety of co-authored publications and reports where he has demonstrated the ability to analyze data and share it with the larger scientific community. He is highly organized in terms of data/project management and can multitask efficiently between multiple field and lab activities. He is known for solving impossible problems, and always with a smile.
In addition to his research, PG is an outstanding marine educator who has a passion for sharing his knowledge and enthusiasm with groups of all ages, especially kids and young adults with an interest in marine science. His love for marine organisms is infectious. For many summers PG has been a research mentor for high school and undergraduate interns that work with him at ESL.