A unique three-way partnership aims to build a global database of aquaculture facilities, including the farms, hatcheries, feed mills and processing plants.
The Global Aquaculture Alliance is partnering with Preferred Freezer Services and the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth on summer internship project, which Preferred CEO John Galiher — a 1984 UMass Dartmouth graduate — is funding.
“This project is both an incredible gesture by John Galiher and the folks of Preferred Freezer Services and a reflection of the program and student excellence of the UMass Dartmouth data science program,” said GAA Executive Director Wally Stevens. “The data will serve to provide focus for the educational work that GAA undertakes with aquaculture producers around the world. GAA strongly believes in the role of education to make improvements in aquaculture.”
Preferred Freezer Services is a GAA governing member, a sponsor of GAA’s GOAL 2015 conference in Vancouver, Canada, and the sponsor of the 2015 Global Aquaculture Innovation & Leadership Award.
A four-person student team led by Dr. David Koop, a UMass Dartmouth computer and data science professor, will collect, organize and analyze the data and populate the database, for the proprietary use by GAA and Preferred Freezer Services.
“Our students will have the opportunity to engage in hands-on data analytics research and provide Preferred Freezer Services and the Global Aquaculture Alliance with relevant information to inform future strategy for their organizations,” said Divina Grossman, Chancellor of UMass Dartmouth.
“I am hiring several full-time employees from the university I attended as well as sponsoring two projects with student research teams that will impact the future of the company I have built from the ground up,” Galiher said.
The project officially kicked off with a ceremony at UMass Dartmouth on Tuesday.
