The Faculty

Lloyd Anderson

Assistant Professor
Oceanography

Pronouns: he/him
Email: lba1@williams.edu
Undergraduate Institution: Bowdoin College
Graduate Institution: Columbia University
Research Areas: Paleoceanography, paleoclimatology, isotope geochemistry, biogeochemistry, micropaleontology

More about Lloyd Anderson

Lloyd is the Assistant Professor of Oceanography and joined Williams-Mystic in the summer of 2023. After completing his undergraduate degree at Bowdoin College, where he investigated intertidal chemistry variations in clam flats, he first stepped into the world of paleoceanography as a Fulbright research grantee at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel, Germany, studying Mississippi River runoff into the Gulf of Mexico during the last ice age (~ 20,000 years ago). In his Ph.D. at Columbia University, Lloyd has conducted research in paleoceanography and paleoclimatology, where he has analyzed the chemistry of fossil planktic foraminiferal shells buried in sediments under the deep ocean to assess surface ocean carbon chemistry, atmospheric CO2 levels, and ocean temperatures in the Cenozoic Era (the last 65 million years). He has presented his work to the American Geophysical Union (AGU), the AGU’s division of Ocean Sciences, and the International Conference on Paleoceanography.

Lloyd loves investigating linkages between “hidden” yet measurable geochemical tracers that allow us to learn more about biogeochemical and physical processes operating in the modern and historical ocean environment. He is looking forward to working with Williams-Mystic students to explore the coastal ocean and study how smaller-scale clues gained on field trips and in the laboratory inform our understanding of broader oceanographic phenomena.

Tim Pusack

Associate Professor
Marine Ecology

Curriculum Vitae

Pronouns: he/him
Email: tjp3@williams.edu
Undergraduate Institution: Colgate University, Natural Sciences
Graduate Institution: Oregon State University, Integrated Biology
Research Areas: Predator-prey dynamics, marine invasive species, environmental stress, coral propagation

More about Tim Pusack

Tim studies community ecology, species interactions, dispersal, and how Environmental stress affects those ecological topics. While working towards his Ph.D., Tim used genetic and field ecology techniques to study larval dispersal and lionfish invasion. As a Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of South Florida, he studied how fluctuation in abiotic conditions affected species interactions on and persistence of oyster reefs.

Tim is passionate about teaching. Before joining the faculty at Williams-Mystic, he taught many courses, from Intro Biology to Ecology to Environmental Science and others. Before joining Williams-Mystic, his favorite course to teach was Marine Ecology along the Oregon Coastline. He is also an avid hiker, volleyball player, and SCUBA diver.

Katy Robinson Hall, Esq.

Associate Professor
Marine Policy

Curriculum Vitae

Pronouns: she/her
Email: crh1@williams.edu
Undergraduate Institution: University of Rhode Island, Marine Affairs
Graduate Institution: Vermont Law School, JD
Law Concentrations: Environmental, Coastal, Water and Wetland, Coastal Climate Justice

More about Katy Robinson Hall

Katy Robinson Hall, an alum of Williams-Mystic, focuses student learning outcomes on solving real-world issues affecting our country’s coasts and oceans. In Marine Policy, her students engage with coastal stakeholders and conduct cross-disciplinary research in order to develop credible policy strategies and solutions to their real-world ocean and coastal-based problems such as conflicts involving fishery conservation and management, offshore wind, marine mammals, coastal climate and environmental justice, and coastal development.

As a practicing environmental attorney, Katy is passionate about making law, policy, and governance accessible to everyone, giving her students the tools to better understand their role as future decision makers and community leaders. Her practice includes work related to land and climate change advocacy, coastal climate justice, water conservation, and coastal zone access and management. Katy is an appointed member of Rhode Island’s Coastal Resource Management Council, a decision-making body that closely examines proposed coastal projects both nearshore and offshore, such as offshore wind, coastal infrastructure, and development to determine compliance with state and federal coastal law.

Ned Schaumberg

Assistant Professor
Literature of the Sea

Pronouns: he/him
Email: ngs3@williams.edu
Undergraduate Institution: Whitman College, English
Graduate Institution: University of Washington, English
Research Areas: English, ecocriticism, global Anglophone literature

More about Ned Schaumberg

Ned’s scholarly background is in English, and his work examines literary efforts to describe the experience of water’s flow and circulation, arguing that figurative language and narrative structures play an increasingly important role in understanding water across space and time. More specifically, he considers literary water from a range of cultural and geographic perspectives to showcase the ways unique and collective experiences of water shape the communities who encounter it. This work draws on his broader work in Ecocriticism and Global Anglophone Literature.

Ned received his PhD in English from the University of Washington, where he taught for the English and Environmental Studies departments, as well as for the Friday Harbor Laboratories Field Station in the San Juan Islands. He earned his BA in English from Whitman College in Walla Walla, WA. Before arriving at Williams, Ned was a Visiting Assistant Professor of English and Global Studies at Pacific Lutheran University, and served as the Seedbox Postdoctoral Fellow, a collaboration between the University of Texas at Arlington, and Linköping University, Sweden, examining the role of the humanities in understanding and approaching complex environmental problems.

Sofia Zepeda

Assistant Professor
American Maritime History

Pronouns: she/her
Email: sez1@williams.edu
Undergraduate Institution: University of California, Santa Cruz, History
Graduate Institution: University of Arizona, Modern European History and World/Comparative History
Research Areas: Sailors, their families, and the effects of gender, welfare, the state, and popular culture on their everyday lives; 18th- and 19th-century Britain and Ireland

More about Sofia Zepeda

Sofia's research examines British and Irish sailors and their families from 1770-1820. She explores their everyday lives and the ways in which society reinforced patriarchal structures through the law, welfare, and popular culture, using sailors' families as their focus. She has presented this work at the American Historical Association's annual meeting, the Pacific Coast Conference on British Studies, and the Western Conference on British Studies. In completing her Ph.D., Sofia conducted her research in more than a dozen archives, libraries, and museums in ports in Britain and Ireland, utilizing sources ranging from Admiralty records to broadsheet ballads.

Sofia looks forward to working with Williams-Mystic students, taking advantage of the many opportunities the area provides for students to interact with and navigate America's maritime past and how it informs our present. Within her discipline, she often looks for ways to incorporate the lived experiences of people in the past — what it felt like, looked like, even smelled like — to live through these moments in history. In teaching this course, she hopes students come away with a greater sense of those experiences, and a stronger understanding of how systems sometimes felt to be long-removed, from the Transatlantic slave trade to the whaling industry, shape our lives today.

James T. Carlton (Emeritus)

Professor Emeritus of Marine Sciences and Director Emeritus of Williams-Mystic

Curriculum Vitae

Pronouns: he/him
Email: james.t.carlton@williams.edu
Undergraduate Institution: University of California, Berkeley, Paleontology
Graduate Institution: University of California, Davis, Ecology

Jim Carlton is Professor of Marine Sciences Emeritus at Williams College (Williamstown, Massachusetts) and Director Emeritus (1989-2015) of the Williams College-Mystic Seaport Maritime Studies Program (Mystic, Connecticut).

More about James Carlton

His research focuses on the environmental history of coastal marine ecosystems, including invasions of non-native species and modern-day extinctions in the world's oceans. His research sites include the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of North America, the Hawaiian Islands, and the Galapagos Islands.

Carlton is Founding Editor-in-Chief of the journal Biological Invasions, a Pew Fellow for Marine Conservation, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences. He has been a Distinguished Research Fellow of the University of California at Davis's Bodega Marine Laboratory and the Paul Illg Distinguished Lecturer at the University of Washington's Friday Harbor Laboratories.

Carlton is the only scientist to receive the Interagency Recognition Award from the United States Federal Government for his national and international work to reduce the impacts of exotic species invasions in the sea. He was Co-Chair of the Marine Biodiversity Committee of the National Academy of Sciences, which produced Understanding Marine Biodiversity: A Research Agenda for the Nation, and he was Co-Chair of the National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council committee advising on setting standards for ballast water to reduce invasive species introductions. Carlton wrote and edited a monograph on the marine life of the Pacific Coast (Intertidal invertebrates from Central California to Oregon, University of California Press, 2007, 1001 pp.).

In 2007, the James T. Carlton Marine Science Center, an 8000-square foot research and teaching facility of the Williams-Mystic Program, was dedicated in his honor. In 2013, he received the Fellows Medal of the California Academy of Sciences. He has authored or co-authored more than 200 peer-reviewed publications and co-edited/authored 6 books. In fall 2017, a team of researchers led by Carlton published a major article on the transport of invasive marine species aboard marine debris in the wake of the May 2011 Japanese tsunami. The article, which appeared on the cover of Science, drew together a team of researchers from across the country and received national media attention. In January 2024, Carlton and his Argentinean colleague Evangelina Schwindt published a monographic paper on “The assessment of marine bioinvasion diversity and history.”

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The Faculty

Lloyd Anderson

Assistant Professor Oceanography

Tim Pusack

Associate Professor Marine Ecology

Katy Robinson Hall, Esq.

Associate Professor Marine Policy

Ned Schaumberg

Assistant Professor Literature of the Sea

Sofia Zepeda

Assistant Professor American Maritime History

James T. Carlton (Emeritus)

Professor Emeritus of Marine Sciences and Director Emeritus of Williams-Mystic

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Assistant Professor
Oceanography

Associate Professor
Marine Ecology

Associate Professor
Marine Policy

Assistant Professor
Literature of the Sea

Assistant Professor
American Maritime History