David Senn
David Senn, PhD
David Senn is a Senior Scientist at SFEI, Co-Director of SFEI’s Clean Water program, and Lead Scientist for the Bay Area Nutrient Management Program. He received his PhD in civil and environmental engineering from MIT, where he studied the interactions between nitrogen pollution and iron and arsenic cycling in contaminated urban lakes. Subsequently, as a researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health, he conducted contaminant fate, transport, and exposure studies, including investigating mercury cycling, bioaccumulation, and human exposure in the Gulf of Mexico. From 2007-2011, he worked at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) and the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag), studying the ecological impacts of large dams in the Zambezi River Basin in southern Africa.
Related Projects, News, and Events

This visualization tool facilitates intuitive comparison of continuous data from around the Bay, and across a variety of analytes, to demonstrate the potential for collaborative monitoring across programs.

The RMP Annual Meeting is held every year in the early fall. The meeting is an opportunity for RMP stakeholders to discuss current RMP projects and highlight interesting new research.

What might be missing from the stories on leopard shark deaths in SF Bay? (News)Source: USGS/San Francisco Estuary Institute
Many news outlets are reporting on a spike in leopard shark deaths and bat rays in S.F. Bay. Several theories related to pollution have been offered, but we want to offer an additional factor that is missing from the discussion...

SFEI scientists studying the role and effects of nutrients in the Bay recently completed two draft reports that summarize current knowledge of the issue.

The Regional Monitoring Program for Water Quality in San Francisco Bay is an innovative collaboration of the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, the regulated discharger community, and the San Francisco Estuary Institute. It provides water quality regulators with information they need to manage the Bay effectively. The Program issues a report each year, the Pulse of the Bay in odd years and the RMP Update in even years.

Historically, freshwater was an important component of the baylands ecosystem, creating salinity gradients that added physical and ecological diversity to the baylands landscape as well as facilitating rapid vertical marsh growth. Today, the extent, magnitude, and seasonality of freshwater to the baylands has been greatly altered. This project brings together diverse stakeholders to further the conversation on using treated wastewater as a resource for a resilient East Bay shoreline.

In an event convened by the San Francisco Estuary Partnership, SFEI contributed its own intellectual labor to the State of the Estuary Conference. Letitia Grenier served as the lead scientist for the State of the Estuary Report, unveiled at the gathering, and SFEI's scientists and technologists were featured prominently in the program on subjects ranging from nutrients to landscape resilience to green infrastructure to data and tools. By all measures, it was a successful conference.

This visualization tool facilitates intuitive comparison of continuous data from around the Bay, and across a variety of analytes, to demonstrate the potential for collaborative monitoring across programs.