Mike Gerel is CBF’s Virginia science manager, where he oversees oyster, shoreline, agriculture, and urban restoration work. He assists in the review of science and policies to assure they advance the protection, resilience, and enjoyment of the Chesapeake Bay and its rivers. A native of Syracuse, New York, he is an accomplished scientist and leader who has served at the intersection of nature and people for over 30 years. Mike has helped enhance the study and recovery of many of the nation’s great estuarine systems, from San Francisco Bay to Narragansett Bay to his home in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

He conceived and underwrote the pioneering approach to removing dams on the Klamath River in Oregon and California, completed in 2024, that represents the largest dam removal project in the world. Mike holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Richmond and a master’s degree in environmental sciences from Johns Hopkins. He serves on several nonprofit boards, including the Virginia Conservation Network and Sustainable Chesapeake. Mike lives in Richmond where he enjoys boxing, his weekly radio show playing music on WDCE, horse rescue, and daily adventures with his Puerto Rican rescue mutt, Ellwood.