Donald Boesch
Donald F. Boesch (born November 14, 1945) is an American marine scientist. He led the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science as president from 1990 to 2017, and from 2006 to 2017 he also served as Vice Chancellor for Environmental Sustainability for the University System of Maryland. In 2010, President Obama appointed him to the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill to examine its causes.
Boesch was born in New Orleans and grew up in the 9th Ward, witnessing flooding from Hurricane Betsy. He earned a B.S. in Biology from Tulane University and a Ph.D. in biological oceanography from the College of William & Mary, and he was a Fulbright-Hays Fellow at the University of Queensland in Australia. He taught at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, and in 1990 became the first Executive Director of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, helping build its Cocodrie marine center and two ships, the Pelican and Acadiana. He also lectured at Louisiana State University.
His research covers coastal and continental shelf ecosystems along the Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, eastern Australia, and the East China Sea. He has published two books and about 100 papers on wetlands, offshore oil effects, nutrients, and environmental policy, and helped document the Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone.
In Maryland, he advised state agencies and five governors, contributed to the Chesapeake Bay program and climate change work, and was honored in 2015 as an Admiral of the Chesapeake. He has served on many science and conservation boards and advisory groups.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 21:00 (CET).