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Robert Michael McKay

Director and Professor, Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research, University of Windsor

R. Michael McKay, Ph.D. serves as Director and Professor at the University of Windsor’s Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research. He holds a PhD from McGill University (Montreal) followed by postdoctoral work in marine science at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the US Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Lab. Prof. McKay has been active in Great Lakes research for >25 years studying the biogeochemical cycling of nutrients, microbial community dynamics and winter limnology involving research coordination with Canadian- and U.S. Coast Guards. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, he extended ongoing work in environmental surveillance of microbiota in large lakes to wastewater surveillance. McKay serves as a member of the International Joint Commission’s Science Advisory Board, as Associate Editor for the Journal of Great Lakes Research and as an inaugural member of Ontario’s Wastewater Surveillance Implementation Advisory Table.

Experience

  • 2019–present
    Executive Director, Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research
  • 1997–2018
    Professor, Bowling Green State University
  • 1994–1997
    Postdoctoral Fellow, Brookhaven National Laboratory
  • 1991–1994
    Postdoctoral Scientist, University of Alaska Fairbanks

Honours

Humboldt Fellow (Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung: 2005)