Keynote Speaker

DR. ROBERT STERNER Director of the Large Lakes Observatory (LLO)

Dr. Robert Sterner is the director of the LLO at Swenson College of Science and Engineering, University of Minnesota Duluth. The LLO’s focus on the Earth’s largest lakes means that its work supports the sustainability of well over half of the accessible freshwater.

LLO’s research takes them from East Africa to Central Asia, Central and South America and beyond. Close ties have been formed with institutes in Canada, Uganda, France, Norway, Kyrgyzstan, Kenya, Nicaragua, Malawi, Tanzania, China, Mexico, Spain, Germany and the United Kingdom, as well as with many universities within the United States. The nearby Laurentian Great Lakes are always in its sights. The LLO brings an interdisciplinary perspective to its research, including aquatic organic and inorganic chemistry, circulation dynamics, acoustic remote sensing, plankton, benthos and microbial dynamics, paleoclimatology and others. Its full-time faculty all have appointments both at LLO and at disciplinary departments, and they are joined by MSc and PhD students in several graduate programs, as well as a highly capable administrative, maritime and technical staff.

LLO is one of the largest water-focused centers of research in the entire University of Minnesota system, with strong ties to the Institute on the Environment, the Limnological Research Center and the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior on the Twin Cities Campus. The large and vibrant water science community of the Twin Ports, including the Natural Resources Research Institute and Minnesota Sea Grant on the Duluth Campus, as well as the nearby EPA’s Mid-Continent Ecology Division and the Lake Superior National Estuarine Research Reserve are frequent and consistent partners with LLO.

The LLO’s focus on the Earth’s largest lakes means that its work supports the sustainability of well over half of the accessible freshwater.