Theresa Gaasterland is an American politician and scientist. She is a

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

Computational Biology Computational biology refers to the use of techniques in computer science, data analysis, mathematical modeling and Computer simulation, computational simulations to understand biological systems and relationships. An intersection of computer sci ...

and

Genomics Genomics is an interdisciplinary field of molecular biology focusing on the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genomes. A genome is an organism's complete set of DNA, including all of its genes as well as its hierarchical, ...

and Director of the Scripps Genome Center at the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego in communications material, formerly and colloquially UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California, United States. Es ...

(UCSD). She was elected a

Fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

of the

International Society for Computational Biology The International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) is a scholarly society for researchers in computational biology and bioinformatics. The society was founded in 1997 to provide a stable financial home for the Intelligent Systems for Mo ...

(ISCB) in 2018 for outstanding contributions to the fields of

computational biology Computational biology refers to the use of techniques in computer science, data analysis, mathematical modeling and Computer simulation, computational simulations to understand biological systems and relationships. An intersection of computer sci ...

and

bioinformatics Bioinformatics () is an interdisciplinary field of science that develops methods and Bioinformatics software, software tools for understanding biological data, especially when the data sets are large and complex. Bioinformatics uses biology, ...

. She was elected to the city council of

Del Mar, California Del Mar (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Of the Sea") is a beach city in San Diego County, California, located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. Established in 1885 as a seaside resort, the city incorporated in 1959. The population was 3,954 ...

in 2018, and the city council elected her to be the city's mayor. The position of mayor of Del Mar rotates among the city councilmembers. During her seventeen years as a Del Mar resident before running for office, she served on the city's finance and

sea level rise The sea level has been rising from the end of the last ice age, which was around 20,000 years ago. Between 1901 and 2018, the average sea level rose by , with an increase of per year since the 1970s. This was faster than the sea level had e ...

advisory committees. She served a year as mayor, until, in 2022, the position of mayor was passed to fellow city councilmember Dwight Worden. Gaasterland opposes efforts by the

California Coastal Commission The California Coastal Commission (CCC) is a state agency within the California Natural Resources Agency with quasi-judicial control of land and public access along the state's of coastline. Its mission as defined in the California Coastal Ac ...

to mandate

managed retreat Managed retreat involves the purposeful, coordinated movement of people and buildings away from risks. This may involve the movement of a person, infrastructure (e.g., building or road), or community. It can occur in response to a variety of hazar ...

as a response to sea level rise in Del Mar.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gaasterland, Terry Living people American bioinformaticians 1963 births Recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers