HRI Director Larry McKinney to Attend White House Ocean Summit
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Dr. Larry McKinney, Senior Executive Director of the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies (HRI) at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, has been invited to participate in a White House Summit on Partnerships in Ocean Science and Technology Thursday, Nov. 14.
The White House Office of Science and Technology invited a select group of ocean science and policy leaders to come together to leverage the nation’s unique research and development capability and strengthen partnerships across academia, philanthropies and the federal government to increase our knowledge of the ocean, promote technologies and investments in our ocean resources.
“I am very honored to have been invited to participate in the White House Summit,” McKinney said. “The Gulf of Mexico is often called the forgotten sea, compared to the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States, when it comes to ocean science. I am happy to be one of several attendees from the Gulf and share our successes in building partnerships to better understand and conserve one of this country’s most precious resources, the Gulf of Mexico.”
HRI is recognized for its efforts to bring academic, government and citizen partnerships together across the Gulf of Mexico to ensure its future health and sustainability. One of HRI’s signature events is the State of the Gulf of Mexico Summit, most recently held in March 2017, which brought together more than 400 Gulf leaders from the three countries that border the Gulf — Cuba, Mexico and the U.S. — to find common cause in ensuring the environmental and economic health and sustainability of one of the world’s most important water bodies. It was at one of the original State of the Gulf Summits that the Gulf of Mexico Alliance, established by the five Gulf states governors to jointly work for the Gulf’s health, was founded.
McKinney is also a founding member of the Gulf of Mexico University Research Collaborative, which brings 80 universities together to promote coastal and ocean sciences in the Gulf. McKinney is the Director of Texas OneGulf, one of six RESTORE designated and funded Centers of Excellence created after the Gulf oil disaster in 2010 to dedicate environmental fines toward funding research that will serve the long-term environmental and economic health of the Gulf of Mexico. HRI leads that consortium of nine Texas marine research institutions.
The one-day White House Summit will be followed by sessions at academic conferences and regional ocean science and technology centers across the country to provide further opportunities to engage the national community in further developing and advancing its goals.
