Ray Hilborn
Ray Hilborn

Ray Hilborn and Tom Quinn, professors in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, are among the first-ever group of Fellows named in the American Fisheries Society (AFS). Fellows are recognized for their outstanding or meritorious contributions to the diversity of fields that represent the AFS, which can include leadership, research, teaching and mentoring, resource management and/or conservation, and outreach or interaction with the public.

“We wanted to honor AFS members who are recognized by their peers as distinguished for their outstanding and/or sustained contributions to the discipline,” said AFS Past President Donna Parrish, who presided over the ceremony at the AFS Annual Meeting in August 2015. “The Fellows program will help make outstanding AFS members more competitive for awards and honors when they are being compared with colleagues from other disciplines and support the advancement of AFS members to leadership positions in their own institutions and in the broader society.”

Tom Quinn
Tom Quinn

Hilborn specializes in natural resource management and conservation of fisheries around the globe. He is one of the principal investigators for the UW’s long-running Alaska Salmon Program, where his work helps forecast and manage the Bristol Bay sockeye salmon fishery, one of one of the most sustainable in the world. He has been recognized for his many contributions to fisheries science, and is an elected Fellow of the Washington State Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society of Canada, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Quinn is well known as a leading authority on salmon and trout. Much of his work focuses on systems along the west coast of North America, including both marine and freshwater. Also one of the principal investigators of the Alaska Salmon Program, his work on salmon ecology has helped to reveal many of the patterns and processes in the behavior of salmonids. Quinn has won numerous teaching awards at UW, and is an elected Member of the Washington State Academy of Sciences.

The inaugural class of Fellows consists of members of national academies associated with countries whose regular AFS members constitute at least 1 percent of all regular AFS members, recipients of a major AFS award, editors of AFS Journals for more than 5 years, and past presidents of AFS. Future Fellows will be selected by a committee using a nomination process.

Founded in 1870, the American Fisheries Society is the world’s oldest and largest fisheries science society. The mission of AFS is to improve the conservation and sustainability of fishery resources and aquatic ecosystems by advancing fisheries and aquatic science and promoting the development of fisheries professionals. With five journals and numerous books and conferences, AFS is the leading source of fisheries science and management information in North America and around the world.