Since September 2021

A $5,000 USD Dr. Greg Bossart Memorial Scholarship is available to a graduate student in wildlife biology, epidemiology, veterinary, medical, public health, basic or social sciences or other post-graduate program focusing on the interconnection between people, animals, plants, and their shared environment using a One Health framework. The next cycle of applications will be announced spring 2023.

Greg Bossart, V.M.D., Ph.D. was a highly respected veterinarian, pathologist, and conservationist committed to advancing the understanding of marine mammals as sentinels of ocean and human health. With a career spanning 30 years and over 200 publications, Dr. Bossart identified resurgent and emerging diseases in dolphins, manatees, birds, and whales. His research and innovative techniques helped characterize the first viral diseases in manatees and he was responsible for developing the first immunohistochemical technique for diagnosing brevetoxicosis (red tide poisoning) in both marine mammals and birds.

Dr. Bossart was a dedicated proponent of the One Health concept and approach which was a prominent theme in his long-running Atlantic bottlenose dolphin Health and Environmental Risk Assessment (HERA) project. Started in 2003, HERA was developed to monitor how dolphin health in coastal habitats is impacted by environmental stressors and how those stressors potentially also impact human health. His contributions to the study of marine mammal health are far-reaching, and through this scholarship, Georgia Aquarium is committed to honoring Dr. Bossart’s One Health legacy.

2022 Awardee December 15, 2022 Award Announcement Miranda Dziobak for her One Health Project titled Sentinel Indicators of Marine Microplastic and Phthalate Exposure

Miranda is a PhD Student at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, South Carolina, USA