Executive Leadership Team

James M. Sullivan, Ph.D., joined Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute in 2015 and was named executive director in 2018. Prior to that, he held senior positions in academia and industry, serving as research faculty at the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography and as a senior oceanographer for Sea-Bird Scientific, a company that manufactures instruments for measuring and monitoring ocean activity.

Throughout his career, Sullivan has received funding from major federal science agencies including the National Science Foundation, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Oceanographic Partnership Program, Office of Naval Research, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the National Institutes of Health. His research interests include the biological and physical mechanisms that control the spatial-temporal dynamics of phytoplankton populations in coastal oceans, harmful algal bloom dynamics, bioluminescence in the ocean, and the development and use of optical and autonomous sampling instrumentation and analytical techniques to study these processes.

He has developed or co-developed equipment including a moored autonomous vertical profiler, a bathyphotometer, an in situ hyperspectral spectrophotometer, and an in situ holographic microscope for 3D characterization of undisturbed particles in the ocean. Sullivan has published more than 50 peer-reviewed papers and has held editorial positions for several international scientific journals. He currently serves as an editor of Optics Express.

Sullivan earned his master’s and doctorate degrees in biological oceanography, with specializations in phytoplankton physiology and ecology as well as bio-optics and biophysics, from the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography.

As executive director, he is leading a strategic effort to develop interdisciplinary research by combining expertise across FAU centers and colleges including Harbor Branch; the Institute for Sensing and Embedded Network Systems Engineering (I-SENSE); SeaTech: Institute for Ocean and Systems Engineering; the Florida Center for Environmental Studies; the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science; the Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College; and the College of Engineering and Computer Science.

Patrick J. Boles, CPA, oversees the operational and financial aspects of Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute. His career spans more than 30 years in managerial roles across private industry, public industry and public accounting, specializing in not-for-profit businesses, including health care.

A licensed certified public accountant, Boles is a graduate of Florida State University with degrees in accounting and finance. He joined FAU Harbor Branch in 2002 as chief financial officer and was appointed chief operating officer in 2005.

As a member of Harbor Branch’s transition team during its merger with FAU, Boles assumed the role of associate executive director of operations and finance. His responsibilities include finance, accounting, accounts payable, grants management, human resources, traffic and parking, employee health and safety, diving and boating operations and safety, security, general services, the Office of Information Technology, and building and grounds operations.

Dr. Joshua Voss is a research professor and director of collegiate education at Florida Atlantic University's Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute. His primary areas of interest include shallow and mesophotic coral reef ecology, coral health and disease, molecular ecology, and marine conservation and management.

Through Harbor Branch's Robertson Coral Reef Program, he works to discover, characterize and protect coral reef ecosystems. A certified technical rebreather diver and scuba instructor, Voss has completed more than 2,000 scientific dives and led more than 50 scientific expeditions.

Voss teaches undergraduate courses in the Harbor Branch Semester by the Sea Program and graduate courses in FAU's Department of Biology and Marine Science and Oceanography Program, which he also co-directs. He previously served as executive director of NOAA's Cooperative Institute for Ocean Exploration, Research, and Technology and as chair of the Harbor Branch Faculty Assembly.

Additionally, he has served on committees including the South Atlantic Fisheries Management Council Coral Advisory Panel, the Southeast Florida Coral Reef Initiative Team (as co-lead of its Technical Advisory Committee), the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary Technical Advisory Committee, the South Florida Marine Research Hub, and FAU's Diving and Boating Safety Committee.

Voss completed his bachelor's degree at Elon University in North Carolina, earned his doctorate in biological sciences at Florida International University, and was a member of the marine science faculty at Eckerd College before joining FAU Harbor Branch in 2007.