Randy Bruins

Senior Environmental Scientist
Ecological Exposure Research Division
National Exposure Research Laboratory
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Biographical sketch: Randy Bruins is an environmental scientist in the U.S. EPA’s Office of Research and Development. He received his bachelor’s (1978) and master’s (1980) degrees, both in Zoology, from Miami University and his Ph.D. (1997) in environmental science from Ohio State University. His dissertation research examined methods for reducing flooding in central China, through ecological strategies such as replacement of low-lying rice with native wetland crops. Since 1997 his EPA research has focused on methods for integrating ecological risk assessment and economic analysis. He addressed these topics in a 2005 book, Economics and Ecological Risk Assessment: Applications to Watershed Management (co-edited with Matthew Heberling) and a forthcoming (2007) volume, Valuation of Ecological Resources: Integration of Ecology and Socioeconomics in Environmental Decision Making (co-edited with Ralph Stahl, Larry Kapustka and Wayne Munns). Randy is a coauthor of EPA’s 2006 strategy for measuring the benefits of ecosystem protection (the Ecological Benefits Assessment Strategic Plan). His current position is in EPA’s National Exposure Research Laboratory, where he is leading the Future Midwestern Landscapes Study, an examination of ecosystem services in the Midwestern US, with special emphasis on the implications of biofuels development. Randy has served on the USSEE board during 2006-2007 and is running for a second at-large term.

Candidate Statement: In my candidate statement of two years ago, I pointed out that USSEE had had only limited interactions with the US government agencies that our science should be influencing, and I indicated my desire to promote more interaction with these agencies. I also suggested that these agencies are now recognizing the limitations of traditional valuation approaches and are looking for better answers. I mentioned EPA’s (then-draft) Ecological Benefits Assessment Strategic Plan, which advocates the use of multiple analytic approaches including those of ecological economics, as one example.

Since then, the completion of that Plan has had at least one important impact within EPA. A decision was made to focus EPA’s Ecological Research Program (ERP) on the understanding and measurement of ecosystem services, so as to regularize their consideration in decision-making processes. (I am leading a component study within that program – the Future Midwestern Landscapes Study referred to in my bio.) As a small step toward the goal of working more with the agencies, the director of the ERP presented that program at USSEE 2007 and initiated some promising discussions with USSEE members.

I would like to devote an additional term on the board to building upon these and other beginnings, with the goal of a more substantial presence of EPA and other state and federal agencies at USSEE 2009.