Dr. Bonnie McCay
Distinguished Professor Emerita
Bonnie J. McCay, Ph.D., is Board of Governors Distinguished Service Professor Emerita, Department of Human Ecology, School of Environmental & Biological Sciences, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. Her undergraduate degree came from Portland State University, and she earned a masters and doctorate at Columbia University in anthropology. Her research and teaching have focused on challenges and policies for managing common pool resources such as fish and shellfish, with particular attention to intersections of ecology, community, and social institutions of science, law and property. She has done field research in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, Canada, in the Middle Atlantic region of the U.S., and in Baja California, Mexico and has published 135 peer reviewed articles and book chapters. Her books include The Question of the Commons, Oyster Wars and the Public Trust, and Enclosing the Commons. She serves on numerous editorial boards and the Board of Directors of the Hudson River Foundation; until recently she also served on the Scientific and Statistical Committee of the Mid-Atlantic Fisheries Management Council. Dr. McCay has served on numerous study committees for the Ocean Studies Board of the National Academy of Sciences, having recently chaired a committee on Limited Access Privilege Programs in Mixed-Use Fisheries. She is on the editorial board of Publications of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) as well as other publications. Among her honors and awards are the Award of Excellence from the American Fisheries Society; the Johan Hjort Chair from NorMER, Oslo; and the Ostrom Award on Collective Governance of the Commons, from the International Association for the Study of the Commons. She is an elected member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Anthropological Association, and the American Fisheries Society.