Biography
Andrea Coombs received her B.Sc. (Honours) from Trent University in Peterborough (Ontario) in 1994, studying Environmental and Resource Science. After several years of working for an environmental consulting company and various marine mammal research groups, she returned to academia for graduate studies.

Andrea completed her M.Sc. in April 2004 at the Marine Mammal Research Unit/Fisheries Centre in association with UBC’s Resource Management and Environmental Studies (RMES) department. The focus of her thesis, “Marine Mammals and Human Health in the Eastern Bering Sea: Using an Ecosystem-based Food Web Model to Track PCBs", was tracking PCBs through the eastern Bering Sea ecosystem to identify the pathways of contaminant flow and evaluating health implications of contaminant exposure for marine mammals and humans. This work extends the existing eastern Bering Sea ecosystem models and is important in terms of management alternatives for marine mammals and human health.

Currently, Andrea is working as a Researcher with Dr. Andrew Trites at the Marine Mammal Research Unit on part of a larger program studying Steller sea lions. Andrea’s other interests continue to be very much outdoor oriented. She enjoys hiking, mountain biking, skiing, and most of all diving. You will often find her, with neon-green accessories so you can’t miss her !, many fathoms below in Howe Sound.

Publications ( MMRU)
Trites, A. W., Bredesen, E. L. and Coombs, A. P., 2004. Whales, whaling and ecosystem change in the Antarctic
and eastern Bering Sea: Insights from ecosystem models. In Investigating the roles of cetaceans in marine
ecosystems. Monaco: CIESM Workshop Monographs pp. 85-92.

Coombs, A.P., 2004. Marine mammals and human health in the eastern Bering Sea: Using an ecosystem-based
food web model to track PCBs. Master of Science thesis. University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC.
91 pp. (Thesis PDF)     Abstract : Abstract

Coombs, A.P., Trites, A.W., and Pauly, D., 2003. Assessing impacts of contaminants on marine mammals and
human health in the eastern Bering Sea. Society for Marine Mammalogy, 15th Biennial Conference on the
Biology of Marine Mammals, December 14 - 19, 2003. Greensboro, North Carolina, USA. p. 35.

Krebs, C. J., E. Bredesen, A. P. Coombs, R. Daniel, R. de Graaf, A. Elz, A. Hall, L. Hooper, A. Janmaat, L.
Mehranvar, E. Rubidge, G. Slooten, P. Tamkee, and K. Welstead. 2001. Graphical presentation of data.
Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America. 82(4):247-248.

Coombs, A. P., A. W. Trites, and D. Pauly. 2001. Contaminant impacts on marine mammals and human health
in the eastern Bering Sea: Using an ecosystem-based food web model for resource management.
Society for Marine Mammalogy, 14th Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals, November 28
- December 3, 2001. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. p. 47.