Bob Shipp, Ph.D.
University of South Alabama

Bob was born in Tallahassee, but grew up with his time split between New Orleans and Ft. Walton Beach, FL. He graduated from Spring Hill College in 1964, and received his MS (1966) and Ph D (1970) degrees from Florida State. During his graduate days he was also an instructor of Biology at Florida A&M.

He has taught at the University of South Alabama since 1972, where he is presently chairman of the Department of Marine Sciences and director of the Alabama Center for Estuarine Studies. He was associate director of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab for ten years. He edited the marine journal Northeast Gulf Science (now Gulf of Mexico Science) for twenty years, and for four years was editor of Systematic Zoology, a premier international journal devoted to evolutionary theory.

He served on the Board of Governors of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, and was president of its southeastern division. He was appointed to the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council in 1991, served as its chairman during 1996-97 and again from 1999-2000. The Councils, created by Congress, are charged with management of the nation's marine fishery resources. He was director of the Alabama CCA and continues to serve as their senior scientist.

He has judged many fishing tournaments, including, since 1982, the Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo, the nation's oldest and largest tournament, which was recently featured along with Bob in the New Yorker magazine. He is a staff writer for Sport Fishing magazine, and authored the July 1999 issue cover story on Mako sharks. His semi-popular/semi-technical "Dr. Bob Shipp's Guide to Fishes of the Gulf of Mexico" is currently in its fifth printing, and is used by the U.S. Coast Guard and National Marine Fisheries Service for field identification of fishes. He has also authored scores of scientific as well as popular papers and articles.

His research interests are fish systematics and zoogeography, and ecology of artificial reef systems. On the latter topics he has presented numerous papers at conferences including two at the recent international reef conference in San Remo, Italy. He was also an invited presenter on artificial reefs at the NOAA sponsored Marine Recreational Fisheries Symposium in San Diego, Senate hearings on fisheries management, and the Minerals Management Services symposium in New Orleans.

His wife, Linda, instructed biology at Spring Hill College for many years, and chaired the Biology Department at the University of Mobile until she went to work at their son Matt's Mobile restaurants (Justine's and the Downtown Octopus). He also has an older daughter, Karla, in Tampa, and a younger one, Erin, at Loyola University of New Orleans and the American University of Paris.