Rob Moir, Ph.D.
Title: President and Executive Director
Company: Ocean River Institute
Location: Cambridge, MA
As the President and Executive Director of a nonprofit environmental organization, Dr. Moir has a proven history of institutional management and marine policy success. He coordinates with local, regional and international groups to help save oceans, rivers and watersheds, and maintains a network of Ocean River Institute partners so he can connect them with resources and services to maximize their impact. An educator, scientist and activist, Dr. Moir attributes his success to his collaborative leadership and organizational management skills. He has dedicated his more than 40-year career to his passion for protecting clean water and healthy ecosystems. With a variety of accomplishments throughout his career, his greatest highlight was initiating bioregional and ecosystem-based collaborative management, an engaged constituency of citizens, scientists, and eco-savvy residents to improve the life-qualities of specific places. He made known a portion on the north shore of the Massachusetts Bay as “Salem Sound,” and brought together six municipalities to manage in concert. He also led a successful initiative to educate and broaden a constituency in Massachusetts supportive of comprehensive area-based management of state coastal waters.
Dr. Moir has lead efforts to clean up Salem Sound and Boston Harbor and is the former president of various advocacy organizations, including Salem Sound Harbor Monitors, Salem Sound 2000, and Save the Harbor/Save the Bay. He was a curator of natural history at the Peabody Essex Museum, a curator of education at the New England Aquarium, and an executive director of the Discovery Museums in Acton, MA. He was Sea Education Association’s first assistant scientist to work consecutive voyages aboard the Research Vessel Westward in 1979 and 1980. In order to attain a better quality of life for humans and wildlife, Dr. Moir hosts an internet talk podcast free on iTunes: Moir’s Environmental Dialogues, Ocean River Shields of Achilles. Dr. Moir intends to further engage citizens and families as eco-stewards to create clean and healthy environments. He also hopes to see an increase in responsible regulations by the government to help manage natural resources, including oceans, rivers and watersheds.
A graduate of Antioch University New England, Dr. Moir earned a Ph.D. in environmental studies in 2002 and a Master of Science in teaching in 1979. He also attended Hampshire College where he graduated in 1977 with a Bachelor of Arts in natural science. Dr. Moir has studied ecology at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and at the USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies on Catalina Island, California. He is an active member of the Boston Harbor Island’s National Park Service Advisory Committees serving on the Partnership. He served for many years on the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. His work on Stellwagen Bank was honored at the 2011 National Marine Sanctuary Foundation Capitol Hill Ocean Week Dinner.
Dr. Moir is the founding chairman of Ocean Champions. In 2016, Ocean Champions and David Wilmot were named recipients of the Excellence in Policy Award presented by The Peter Benchley Ocean Awards. The 2016 Excellence in Science Award was presented to Dr. Barbara A. Block, a former student of Dr. Moir. They sailed on Sea Education Association’s R.V. Westward cruise W49. Dr. Moir has received numerous honors for his dedication and hard work in his profession, including the Switzer Environmental Fellowship from Robert & Patricia Switzer Foundation in 1996, and the James Centorino Award for Distinguished Performance in Marine Education from the National Marine Educators Association in 1988.
Internationally, Dr. Moir has presented papers in Quebec, Amsterdam, Gdansk, Glasgow, and Tortola, British Virgin Islands. He sails in Boston Harbor on a Philip Rhodes designed, Henry Nevins built three-quarters sloop rig Rhodes 27 named Gannet.
For more information about Dr. Moir’s current work and Ocean River Institute, please visit their website at www.oceanriver.org. For information about Ocean Champions, please visit their website at www.oceanchampions.org.
Contact Rob Moir
Elite Worldwide Executives & Professionals 