Scott Heppell

Scott
Heppell
Oregon State University

I am an assistant professor in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at Oregon State University, where I share a research lab with my wife, Selina. I grew up in Tigard, OR, where family vacations always seemed to be fishing and camping trips to the Cascades or exploring the Oregon coast. It was those trips to the coast that convinced me by the time I was 10 that I wanted to work on, around, and in the ocean.

I earned my BS in Biology from the University of Washington and got a Master’s and PhD at North Carolina State University. My research interests are the physiological ecology of fishes, in particular how physiology, behavior, and life history traits affect the interactions between fish populations, their environment, and their respective fisheries. I have worked on blue fin tuna in the Atlantic and Mediterranean, on groupers throughout the southeast Atlantic, Caribbean, and Gulf of Mexico, on rockfish in Oregon and Alaska, and on trout, steelhead, and salmon in Japan and the high deserts of eastern Oregon and Northern Nevada. I collaborate with academic scientists, state and federal agencies, foreign agencies and universities, and commercial and recreational fishermen, working together to try and address issues related to the sustainability of marine and freshwater resources and their ecosystems.

At Oregon State University I teach classes in fish physiology, fishery biology, and management of salmon in the Pacific Northwest, and each year Selina and I teach an international short course in Conservation Biology in Rovinj, Croatia. I have a 7 year old son, Dylan, who is turning into an excellent field assistant.