Dr. Nelson Ehrhardt
Professor Emeritus of Marine Biology and Fisheries at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science
Dr. Nelson Ehrhardt’s 45+ year career in fisheries began with completion of a degree in Naval Engineering at the Universidad del Norte in Chile. Shortly thereafter, he completed a Master’s degree at the University of Washington, studying the population dynamics of hakes. While completing at PhD at the University of Washington, Nelson was recruited by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) where he served as a chief stock assessment scientist for international fishery assessments- including billfishes and other pelagics. In his tenure with the FAO, he resided in Africa, Yemen, Rome, London, and Mexico City. In 1983, Dr. Ehrhardt began his academic career at the University of Miami.
Since then, he has graduated the most PhD students (25) in the history of the school’s Division of Marine Biology and Fisheries. As a professor at the University of Miami, Dr. Ehrhardt has studied complicated population dynamic processes of tropical and subtropical fishes and crustaceans throughout North and South America. Dr. Ehrhardt has notably and successfully linked environmental processes to recruitment and availability of numerous fisheries- including snappers, shrimps, stone crabs, tropical lobsters, and billfishes. In 2007, Dr. Ehrhardt is also among the founders of a consortium of billfish resource stakeholders from Central America and Panama that envisioned a unified front to promote the conservation of billfishes.