GESAMP - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• Director at the Cropper Foundation
• Environmental Economist

Alexander Girvan is an Environmental Economist. His areas of expertise are ecosystem assessments, economic analysis, and environmental valuation, mainstreaming and communication. He currently works with vulnerable coastal Caribbean communities to develop sustainable livelihoods for the blue economy. This work includes the application participatory approaches, value chain methodologies and introduction of innovative finance. He completes this work in collaboration with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and as an independent consultant with NGOs and IGOs in Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Antigua and Barbuda. He is a coordinating lead author of the economic values chapter of Grenada IPBES National Ecosystem Assessment and is a Lead author on the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) values assessment. Alexander serves as a Director at the Cropper Foundation, a member of the Technical Sub-committee of the Trinidad and Tobago Extractive Industries Transparency Institute, and a member of the board of Advisors for the Journal of Caribbean Environmental Sciences and Renewable Energy (CESaRE). He was previously the Programme Coordinator of the Caribbean Sea Commission. In this role, he promoted diplomatic and scientific cooperation among the 23 member states of the Association of Caribbean States on issues pertaining to Caribbean Sea sustainability. Alexander completed his BSc with a double major in Economics and Geography at McGill University and his MSc in Environmental Economics and Environmental Management at the University of York. He was awarded best-in-class honours for his MSc.

Chris Vivian has worked for Cefas, the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, an agency of the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), and its predecessor since 1986. He received a BSc in Geology and Oceanography and a PhD in Marine Geochemistry at University College of Swansea in Wales, followed by an 18 months research fellowship at Imperial College, London. He has specialised in advising on the impact of human activities on the marine environment, particularly the disposal of wastes at sea. He has had a long involvement with the OSPAR Convention and the London Convention/London Protocol. He was the Chairman of the Scientific Groups of the London Convention and London Protocol from 2008 to 2011 and the Chairman of the OSPAR Convention's Biodiversity Committee that dealt with species/habitat protection issues as well as the impacts of human activities from 2006 to 2010. Chris is a member of the Central Dredging Association (CEDA), the International Navigation Congress (PIANC), the Estuarine and Brackish Water Science Association (EBSA) and as a Fellow of the Institute for Marine Engineering, Science and Technology (IMAREST).

Job Titles:

• Honorary Professor of Ocean Governance at Rhodes University

Doctor Vousden is an Honorary Professor of Ocean Governance at Rhodes University in South Africa. He has a career spanning some 38 years during which he has worked in various governmental and United Nations positions, all related to environmental management. During this period, his career has evolved through the development and ‘field-proving' of state-of-the-art monitoring and analysis, into broader yet still cutting-edge management techniques and thence to innovative adaptive management and governance mechanisms, particularly for global oceans and coasts. He has provided expert advice and professional evaluation services to marine ecosystem management and ocean governance initiatives in every global ocean and many of the world's seas. He has also been intimately involved in the development and teaching of a number of courses related to ocean governance and marine ecosystem management over the last 20 years and at many level from undergraduate through Masters and Doctorates to senior level management courses. Dr. Vousden is currently involved in the development and implementation of sustainable management strategies for oceanic fisheries, the management of large-scale marine protected areas and in evolving management and stewardship mechanisms for marine ecosystems in areas beyond national jurisdiction.

Job Titles:

• Co - Director of the Lyell Centre

Dr Tracy Shimmield is Co-Director of the Lyell Centre. Previously she was Associate Director of research institute the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) and Managing Director of their trading subsidiary SRSL (SAMS Research Services Limited), Oban, UK. Tracy, a marine geochemist, has over 30 years' experience in environmental geochemistry. She obtained an MSc From Strathclyde University and a Ph.D. from Edinburgh University. Her research interests include the investigation and assessment of human impacts on the marine environment through the monitoring of pollutants and the study of biogeochemical processes involved in their redistribution. She is also an experienced radiochemist and utilises natural and manmade radionuclides as tracers of marine processes including sediment accumulation and mixing rates. Dr Shimmield has been supervisor to 9 PhD students and has been a Principal Investigator on a number of research and commercial grants funded by the UK Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC), European Union Framework programme and commercial companies. Dr Shimmield is interested in how science and innovation can come together to realise societal benefit and economic growth. She is a member of the Scotland Can Do Forum set up by the Scotland's Deputy First Minister. As a marine biogoechemist, Dr Shimmield began working with the government of Papua New Guinea a decade ago, advising on mitigating and managing the impacts of mining on their marine environment, including the writing of ‘General' and ‘Specific' regulatory guidelines for the use of Deep Sea Tailings Placement (DSTP) in the country. As part of this project, Dr Shimmield organised and participated in an International Conference on Deep Sea Tailings Placement, held in Madang, Papua New Guinea (2008). Over the years, Dr Shimmield has become a world-renowned expert in the environmental impacts of DSTP and was consequently invited to be a speaker at the Deep Sea Mining Summit held in London in May 2017. She has since travelled to Brussels to take part in a workshop on Technological and Environmental Aspects of Deep-Sea Mining and has presented to the Norwegian Mineral Waste Committee under the Norwegian Mining and Quarrying Industries (Norsk Bergindustri), and at the International Mineral Processing Congress held in Santiago, Chile.

Dr. Mario Tamburri received a bachelor's degree from University of California Santa Barbara, a master's degree from University of Alabama, and doctoral degree from the University of South Carolina in biology and marine science. He is now a Professor at the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, and Director two environmental innovation programs - the Alliance for Coastal Technologies (ACT) and the Maritime Environmental Resource Center (MERC). ACT is a component of US Integrated Ocean Observing System and designed to foster the development and adoption of effective and reliable sensors and platforms for studying and monitoring ocean, coastal and freshwater environments. Similarly, MERC is an initiative that provides test facilities, expertise, information, and decision tools to address key environmental issues facing the international maritime industry and to support Green Ship innovations. Dr. Tamburri has published over 100 peer-reviewed publications, technical reports and book chapters and serves on multiple national and international scientific committees and advisory panels. He has over 20 years of experience on issues relating to the ship transfer on non-indigenous species, through both ballast water and biofouling, and has several ongoing national and international initiatives examining the efficiency and environmental safety of ship in-water cleaning. In 2020, Dr. Tamburri was a founding member, and vice-chair, of the Working Group on Biofouling Management (WG 44) and in 2022, he became the Working Group acting chair.

Dr. Wendy Watson-Wright was the inaugural Chief Executive Officer of the Ocean Frontier Institute (OFI). Headquartered in Atlantic Canada, the OFI is a transdisciplinary international research institute whose aim is the safe and sustainable development of the ocean frontier. From 2010 to 2015, Dr. Watson-Wright served as the Executive Secretary and Assistant Director General of UNESCO's Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC-UNESCO) in Paris. For most of her career, she held various senior positions within Fisheries and Oceans Canada, including as Assistant Deputy Minister of Science from 2001 to 2009. Dr. Watson-Wright has been on several boards and panels including the Belmont Forum Collaborative Research Action on Transdisciplinary Research for Ocean Sustainability (chair), the European Marine Board External Review panel (chair), the Canadian Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) governing council, and the Scientific Advisory Board of the Wendy Schmidt Ocean Acidification X-Prize. A Killam scholar, she holds a Ph.D. in Physiology from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Jan Linders holds a degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Twente in The Netherlands with a specialization in Environmental Chemistry. To that purpose, he wrote his thesis on "a phosphorous model for Lake Brielle" for this eutrophicated lake in the Netherlands in 1974. He joined the National Institute for Drinking Water research in 1975 and worked for about 10 years on mathematical modelling and statistical data handling of environmental monitoring projects. Since 1985 he worked in the area of regulatory risk assessment for pesticides, biocides, industrial chemicals and medicinal drugs for humans and animals. He developed computerized risk assessment tools for these types of chemicals, first in the national context but later also for the European Union (EU), the Council of Europe and the Organization for Economic cooperation and Development (OECD) and finally globally in the International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). He served for about 10 years as a member and vice chair of the Scientific Committee on Health and Environmental Risks (SCHER). He chaired working groups of the EU on mathematical modelling of surface waters and the development of scenarios for pesticide application in the framework of the registration. Since 2006, he is a member of the GESAMP Ballast Water Working Group (WG 34), of which he became the Chairperson in 2008. This group developed a risk assessment methodology for the discharge of disinfection by-products after the application of Ballast Water Management Systems (BWMS) on ships.

Job Titles:

• Co - Director of the Karen C. Drayer Wildlife Health Center

Kirsten Gilardi is a wildlife veterinarian, Co-Director of the Karen C. Drayer Wildlife Health Center (WHC) and a Health Sciences Clinical Professor of Wildlife Health in the Department of Medicine & Epidemiology at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. She directs the California Lost Fishing Gear Recovery Project, a program she launched in 2006 that works in close collaboration with commercial fishermen to remove more than 140 tons of lost, abandoned and discarded fishing gear and other marine debris from California's coastal ocean to date. Kirsten earned her DVM at UC Davis in 1993 and joined the staff of the WHC in 1998. She established the WHC's SeaDoc Society in 2000, and in 2001 she became board-certified by the American College of Zoological Medicine. She is a past President of the American Association of Wildlife Veterinarians. In addition to her work with GESAMP, Gilardi chairs the Build Evidence Working Group of the Global Ghost Gear Initiative, and is a member of the West Coast Marine Debris Alliance.

Job Titles:

• Marine Geophysicist With the Nigerian Institute for Oceanography

Lawrence F. Awosika is a marine geophysicist with the Nigerian Institute for Oceanography and Marine Research (NIOMR) Lagos. He holds a BSc in geology from Howard University Washington DC., USA; MSc in geology with specialty in geophysics from George Washington University Washington DC., USA, and a PhD in applied geophysics from Obafemi Awolowo University Ile Ife. Dr Awosika has over 25 years of national and international experience in marine and coastal surveys, EIAs, project management, and marine environmental issues. He has published over 60 national and international papers in the above areas. Dr. Awosika is a member and vice-chairman of the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS). He also serves as the technical expert/adviser on the Nigerian Extended Continental Shelf project. Mr. Awosika is currently a Member Emeritus of GESAMP.

Job Titles:

• Professor

Manmohan Sarin, Professor and INSA-Senior Scientist, is associated with Geosciences Division at Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, India. His early research work had focused on chemical weathering processes in Indian river basins and associated element fluxes to the ocean; Application of Uranium-Thorium decay series nuclides to study particle-dynamics and carbon export in upper ocean. In recent years, his research is centred on characteristics of carbonaceous aerosols from biomass burning emissions in northern India; Atmospheric mineral dust, Chemistry and long-range transport; Air-sea deposition of nutrients and anthropogenic trace metals to the Indian Ocean. He is a Fellow of all three National Academies of Sciences in India. He is a recipient of J C Bose Fellowship from the Department of Science & Technology (India) and Mary Sears Award from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (USA). He has been a Member of American Geophysical Union, European Geophysical Union, American Chemical Society and European Association of Geochemistry. He has served as Programme Director for ISRO-Geosphere Biosphere Project on Atmospheric Dust; Principal Investigator of JGOFS and LOCIZ (India) Programmes. He also served as Member of International Commission on Atmospheric Chemistry and Global Pollution (CACGP); Adjunct Faculty at Center of Earth, Ocean and Environment, University of Delaware (USA); Visiting Professor at Ocean Research Institute, Tokyo University (Japan) and SCOR Working Group 116 on "Sediment trap and Th-234 methods for carbon export flux determination". Currently, he is Vice-Chairman of GESAMP and Member of Working Group 38 on "Atmospheric input of chemicals to the ocean".

Mike Huber is a marine ecologist and biological oceanographer specializing in marine environment science. In his early career he held teaching and research positions in the United States, Papua New Guinea, and Australia, on diverse subjects including marine community ecology, invertebrate zoology, bioluminescence, biostatistics, population genetics, behavioural ecology, evolution, and cell biology. Mike subsequently left academia to focus on environmental science and has worked in this capacity with many international agencies, governments, NGOs and the private sector. This work has included the design, implementation, and review of environmental impact assessments, monitoring and mitigation programs, sustainable development projects, and marine education. He is the co-author of a leading university textbook on Marine Biology and works as an environmental consultant. Mike is a past Chairman of GESAMP. He holds a PhD from Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Richard Luit holds a degree in Environmental Sciences from the Wageningen University in The Netherlands with specialization in environmental toxicology and chemical risk assessment. He graduated in 1997 and worked for four years for a contract research organization as a study director responsible for mammalian and ecotoxicological studies on industrial chemicals, pharmaceuticals and plant protection products. In 2001 he joined his current employer the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) where he worked in several jobs and roles in the area of Dutch national and European Union regulatory risk assessment for industrial chemicals. Since 2005 he has been actively involved in the early stages of implementation of the EU REACH and CLP Regulations and specifically in guidance development in accordance with the UN GHS and the CLP implementation thereof. In his current role he is member of the Dutch Bureau REACH and a member of the European Chemicals Agencies Socio-Economic Analyses Committee. Between 2012 and 2014 he was member of the Dutch administration in the IMO ESPH working group, deriving transport conditions for liquids and gases transported in bulk under the IBC Code based upon GESAMP-EHS hazard profiles. He joined GESAMP-EHS as a member in 2014 and was appointed chairman of that group in 2020.

Job Titles:

• Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences, Texas a & M University

Robert A. Duce, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA. He has held various professorial positions in the US and abroad. His research interests lie in atmospheric and marine chemistry, the role of air/sea exchange processes in global cycling of trace elements, impact of trace substances on oceanic chemistry and biological productivity, and chemistry of atmospheric particles in remote areas of the globe. He is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological Society, the Oceanography Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics. He has been a member of many national and international scientific advisory groups, panels, committees and societies. He served as President of SCOR, the International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences, the International Commission on Atmospheric Chemistry and Global Pollution, and the Oceanography Society, as well as Chair of the US National Academy of Sciences Ocean Studies Board. He is past Chair of GESAMP and chair and member of several earlier working groups and task teams. Currently he is co-chair of Working Group 38 on the ‘Atmospheric Input of Chemicals to the Ocean'.

Job Titles:

• Research Scientist at the Pacific Community

Valérie Allain is a fisheries research scientist at the Pacific Community (SPC). Her domains of expertise include fish biology and ecology, ecosystem functioning, fisheries, and climate change impact. After studying the deep-sea fish populations exploited by trawl fisheries in the north-east Atlantic, she moved to the Pacific in 2000 where she has spent the last 19 years working on the tuna fisheries of the Western and Central Pacific Ocean. Her work has particularly focused on understanding the tuna ecosystem through studies of the trophic interactions between fish species as well as an analysis of the various compartments of this ecosystem, from primary producers to top predators. She has also studied the impact of seamounts on tuna catches, tuna fisheries bycatches, and tuna movement and ecosystem organization through biological markers such as mercury and stable isotopes.