Frances gulland biography

Frances Gulland currently serves as Chair of the Marine Mammal Commission, having been appointed to that position by President Biden on May 4th 2022.
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Dr. Frances Gulland is covered up to her chest in sea lion guts. Blood runs down her heavy-duty apron. In one hand she wields a scalpel to expertly cut out the vital organs. She places them in a silver bucket. On a side table sits the animal's head.

Gulland wipes the sweat from her brow with the sleeve of her T-shirt. Just yards away, she can hear the sea lions calling out — deep barks, aggressive growls, rapid-fire grunts. The sounds carry across The Marine Mammal Center, bounce off the mountains, and travel down to the Pacific Ocean. It's a sunny, warm fall day in Sausalito, California. The air is fresh and salty.

Across the necropsy table, research assistant Emily Andrews works quickly to keep pace with Gulland, her mentor. Soon the bucket is full of tissue samples. Andrews takes the samples down to the basement for storage in a giant freezer for future study. Up in necropsy, Gulland keeps cutting.

As the center's Director of Veterinary Science, Gulland leads staff and volunteers in an effort to help treat sick

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Meet the Commission

The Marine Mammal Commission consists of three members (i.e., Commissioners) who are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. The Commissioners must be knowledgeable in marine ecology and resource management as mandated by the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA).

The Commission is assisted in its work by a nine-member Committee of Scientific Advisors (CSA) on Marine Mammals. Committee members are appointed by the Chair of the Commission after consultation with the Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality, the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, the Director of the National Science Foundation, and the Chair of the National Academy of Sciences. A special advisor on native affairs is also appointed to the committee. The MMPA requires that committee members be knowledgeable in marine ecology and marine mammal affairs.

The Commission and CSA are supported by a staff of 14 full-time employees, including an Executive Director, who is appointed by the Chair with the approval of the Commissioners.

Our Commission staff office is located in B

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Sea lions are dying from a mysterious cancer. The culprits? Herpes and DDT

On a former Cold War missile base perched high above the Golden Gate Bridge, in what is now the largest marine mammal hospital in the world, Frances Gulland still remembers the shock she felt when she first started working here as a veterinarian 26 years ago.

A male sea lion had washed ashore in severe pain. His hind flippers were swollen, his lymph nodes riddled with tumors. Cancer had taken over his kidneys and turned his spine to mush. First responders at the Marine Mammal Center told Gulland they saw this in sea lions all the time.

“Wildlife should not be getting cancer like this, that’s crazy!” said Gulland, who was new to California. “How can that be?”

Now, after two decades of study, an all-star team of marine mammal pathologists, virology experts, chemists and geneticists say they’ve connected two surprising culprits: herpes and toxic chemicals, like DDT and PCBs, that poisoned the California coast decades ago.

The ocean is clearly hurting, researchers say, and this mysterious cancer in so man