Full Bio
Mike has been an Aquatic Ecologist and Senior Macroinvertebrate Taxonomist with MBI since November of 2020. He is primarily involved with the identification of macroinvertebrate samples and helps with limited field work. He retired from the Ohio EPA in 2019 where he spent 36 years conducting biological field surveys of Ohio streams. At the Ohio EPA he was one of the principle investigators in the Primary Headwater methods and created the HMFEI (Headwater Macroinvertebrate Field Evaluation Index). He has published scientific papers on various aspects of macroinvertebrate taxonomy and distribution. He published papers describing a new species of chironomid midge (Paratanytarsus longistilus), a new species of fossil oyster from the Plio-Pleistocene of Florida (Striostrea paucichomata), and the immature stages of a terrestrial chironomid (Chasmatonotus unimaculatus). Through his efforts in collecting and associating the life stages of chironomids he was honored by various researchers with five species named after him. The complete downloadable list of his publications can be found online at Research Gate and Academia. He received a B.S. in Natural Science and a M.S. in Biology from the University of Akron.