Adria Anne Elskus

I am a Bureau Approving Official (BAO, Biology) located at the U.S. Geological Survey’s S.O. Conte Anadromous Fish Research Laboratory (CAFRL) in Turners Falls, Massachusetts. I review and approve USGS information products with interpretive research results for release to the public or other federal agencies, and provide guidance to USGS scientists on the planning and preparation of information products in accordance with USGS Fundamental Science Practices.

From 2016-2020 I was Branch Chief of CAFRL where I oversaw research on migratory fish including the design of fishways, the physiological processes unique to migratory fish, fish performance metrics, tracking and predicting the movement of fish in response to environmental change, and work on endangered fish species. Prior to becoming Branch Chief, I was a USGS Supervisory Research Fishery Biologist toxicologist at the University of Maine (2004-2015) studying a range of aquatic pollutants and their effects on vertebrate and invertebrate physiology, reproduction, early life stage development, biochemical metabolism, and ecosystem processes. In this work I partnered with federal and state scientists, managers, tribes, university scientists and non-governmental organizations. Before joining USGS I was an environmental consultant in industry, an environmental chemist and invertebrate toxicologist with the US Environmental Protection Agency and held faculty positions at the Marine Sciences Research Center at Stony Brook University and at the University of Kentucky. I have authored or co-authored over 60 peer-reviewed publications and reports on topics ranging from biochemical mechanisms involved in pollutant tolerance to novel methods for treating the ballast water of Great Lakes bulk carriers.