SEA AROUND US PROJECT AND OCEANA - Key Persons
Anna Luna grew up between the lakes of Quebec and the Mediterranean Coast of France, where she developed a close relationship with the water. Seeing whales for the first time on Quebec's northern coast when she was a kid kickstarted her passion for the ocean.
She completed her BSc in Biological Sciences at the University of Montreal, specializing in Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolution. Following that, she set off on a year-and-a-half travel and eco-volunteering journey across Southeast Asia with the goal of deepening her grasp of the world's marine ecosystems. Now, she's excited about pursuing her MSc at the University of British Columbia, under the supervision of Daniel Pauly.
Job Titles:
- Vice - Chair
- Professor of Fish and Fisheries Biology at the School of Biology
Athanassios (Thanasis) is a professor of Fish and Fisheries Biology at the School of Biology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. He studied Environmental Biology (BSc), Oceanography (MSc) and Fisheries (Ph.D.) and has worked for 25 years in research and academic institutions. His research focuses on fish biology, monitoring marine populations, ecosystem modelling, stock assessment, ecocentric fisheries management and developing the digital twin of the ocean, with particular interest in the data-deficient Mediterranean fisheries. Professional and recreational fishing were family traditions, rebuilding fish stocks and marine ecosystems are his lifetime obligations.
Brittany completed her B.Sc. in Biology at UBC and joined the Sea Around Us as a Research Assistant in 2015. She works on the carry forward and update of catch reconstructions. She developed her interest in food security and environmental sustainability during her Science Co-op placements at Agriculture Canada and UBC Okanagan. She is happy to be back near the ocean again and working for the Sea Around Us. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, hiking, painting, and Ultimate Frisbee.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Professor
Callum Roberts is a professor of marine conservation at the University of Exeter in the UK. His research focuses on threats to marine life and on finding the means to protect them. For the last three decades, he has used his scientific background to make the case for stronger protection for marine life. His team provided the scientific underpinning for a new ocean protection target - 30% by 2030 - which is gaining widespread support. He leads the Convex Seascape Survey research programme into ocean carbon sequestration. He is the author of three books: The Unnatural History of the Sea (Island Press 2007), Ocean of life: how our seas are changing (Penguin 2013), and Reef Life: An Underwater Memoir (Profile Books 2019). He is chief scientific advisor to BLUE Marine Foundation and the Maldives Coral Institute, a WWF UK Fellow, board member of the Nekton Deep Ocean Research Institute, and advisor to the Pew Bertarelli Global Ocean Legacy Program.
Job Titles:
- Research Fellow in Marine Historical Ecology at the University of Exeter
- Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow
Ciaran is a postdoctoral research fellow in marine historical ecology at the University of Exeter, UK. He is currently visiting the Sea Around Us to collaborate on the Convex Seascape Project, a wide-ranging project aiming to better understand the earth's blue carbon stores and their vulnerability. Specifically, he will describe and map the spread of human pressures on the global seabed over the past 200 years.
Prior to this, Ciaran was a postdoc/PhD student at the Danish National Institute of Aquatic Resources (DTU Aqua), where he researched the effects of bottom trawling on seabed habitats, and the use of ecological indicators in fisheries management and conservation.
Ciaran has a BSc in marine biology from Bangor University, and a MSc in marine resource development and protection from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. In the past, he has worked as a scuba diving instructor in the Red Sea, and as a consultant marine ecologist in the UK. He is originally from Cork, Ireland, and likes nothing more than being by/in the sea.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Founder of the Nonprofit Conservation Organization BLOOM
Claire is the founder of the nonprofit conservation organization BLOOM, based in Paris and Hong Kong. Her research and activities focus on deep-sea fisheries and shark consumption habits. In Asia, Nouvian and BLOOM's co-workers aim to improve the degraded conservation status of shark populations by making shark fin soup a socially unacceptable dish. In Europe, Nouvian is dedicated to studying the nature of deep-sea fishing. Before starting BLOOM, Claire, who has a B.A. in History from the University of Paris IV Sorbonne, worked in television production and journalism, specializing in wildlife and scientific documentaries. She is the author of the 2006 book and museum exhibit The Deep, winner of the 2018 Goldman Environmental Prize and is involved in education through art and science projects at the University of Geneva, AgroParisTech/ENGREF, University of Hong Kong, among others.
Daniella Kim is a third-year undergraduate science student at the University of British Columbia, majoring in environmental sciences.
As part of her studies, she is working on epistemic uncertainty and uses of chemicals like perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) in different products and the emerging concerns around their use.
Daniella's interest in the oceans started when she volunteered for Project Seahorse, at UBC's Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries. During that practicum, she conducted a literature review on areas that have been bottom-trawled in the past and where this fishing technique is no longer allowed. She specifically focused on identifying phrases or sentences that directly indicate the reason for the ban.
For the summer of 2024, Daniella decided to volunteer with the Sea Around Us. She will be conducting a literature review aimed at updating the catch price database.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Professor in Marine Ecology and Data Analysis at the University of Montpellier
David is a professor in marine ecology and data analysis at the University of Montpellier. He has a background in theoretical ecology and statistics. He developed the field of marine macroecology, i.e., the exploration and explanation of large-scale biodiversity patterns across the oceans. He particularly focuses his research, carried out at the MARBEC lab, on coral and temperate reefs to better understand the interlaced effects of climate change and human pressures on fish biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. More recently, he leads the development of a new generation of tools based on environmental DNA to monitor marine biodiversity across spatial and depth gradients. He is one of the associate editors of Ecology Letters and a senior fellow at the Institut Universitaire de France. David has been recognized as a highly cited researcher since 2016 in Ecology and Environment.
Job Titles:
- Project Manager
- Senior Scientist
- Senior Staff Member
- the Sea Around Us Project Manager
Maria (Deng) is the Sea Around Us Project Manager. She joined the lab in 2001 to supervise the integration of fish-related data generated by the Sea Around Us and UBC's Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries into FishBase. From research associate she moved up to senior scientist and, as of June 2017, she became Project Manager, a position that has led her to coordinate improvements to the project's infrastructure and website, lead fundraising efforts and apply a computer-intensive method of ‘stock assessment' to the catch statistics of all maritime countries. Prior to the Sea Around Us, Deng worked for almost 20 years at the International Center for Living Aquatic Resources Management in the Philippines. During that time, she completed her MSc in Environmental Science and a PhD at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure Agronomique de Toulouse.
Job Titles:
- Principal Investigator
- Senior Staff Member
- Daniel Pauly
Dr. Daniel Pauly was born in Paris, France; he is both French and Canadian and studied fisheries science in Germany, but he spent much of his career in the tropics, notably in the Philippines. Since 1994, he is a Professor of Fisheries at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver Canada, where in 1999, he founded the Sea Around Us research initiative, funded by a variety of philanthropic foundations and devoted to documenting and mitigating the impact of fisheries on the world's marine ecosystems. The concepts, methods and software he (co-)developed are documented in over 1000 widely-cited contributions and have led to his receiving multiple scientific awards.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Marine Conservation
Dr. Dirk Zeller is Professor of Marine Conservation and leader of the Sea Around Us- Indian Ocean in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Western Australia (UWA). He can be reached at dirk.zeller@uwa.edu.au.
Prior to joining the University of Western Australia, Dirk was Senior Scientist and Executive Director of the Sea Around Us (Sea Around Us - Global) at the University of British Columbia (UBC, www.seaaroundus.org), and has been part of the Sea Around Us since its inception in 1999.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Professor
Dr. Enric Sala is a former university professor who saw himself writing the obituary of ocean life and quit academia to become a full-time conservationist as a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence. He founded and leads Pristine Seas, a project that combines exploration, research, media, economics and policy work to inspire country leaders to protect vital places in the ocean. To date, Pristine Seas has helped to create 25 of the largest marine reserves on the planet, covering an area of over 6.5 million square km. Enric has received numerous awards, including 2008 World Economic Forum's Young Global Leader, 2013 Explorers Club Lowell Thomas Award, 2016 Russian Geographical Society Award, 2018 Heinz Award in Public Policy, National Geographic Hubbard Medal, Albert I Grand Medal. He is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Professor
- Professor and Director, Fisheries Economics Research Unit
- University of British Columbia Researchers
Rashid Sumaila is Professor and Director, Fisheries Economics Research Unit and the OceanCanada Partnership at the University of British Columbia. He has also been an active and key member of the Sea Around Us Project since its inception in 1999. He specializes in bioeconomics, marine ecosystem valuation and the analysis of global issues such as fisheries subsidies, illegal fishing, climate change and oil spills.
Rashid has experience working in fisheries and natural resource projects in Norway, Canada and the North Atlantic region, Namibia and the Southern African region, Ghana and the West African region and Hong Kong and the South China Sea. He has published articles in several journals including Nature, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Journal of Bioeconomics, Land Economics, ICES Journal of Marine Science, Environmental and Resource Economics and Ecological Economics.
He is the winner of the 2017 Volvo Environmental Prize, 2017 Benchley Oceans Award in Science; 2016 UBC Killam Research Prize; 2013 American Fisheries Society Excellence in Public Outreach Award; 2009 Stanford Leopold Leadership Fellowship and 2008 Pew Marine Fellowship. Sumaila was named a Hokkaido University Ambassador in 2016. He has given talks at the UN Rio+20, the WTO, the White House, the Canadian Parliament, the African Union and the British House of Lords.
Rashid's work has generated a great deal of interest and has been cited by, among others, the Economist, the Boston Globe, the International Herald Tribune and the Vancouver Sun. For more about his list of publications, click here.
University of British Columbia researchers Dr. Rashid Sumaila and Dr. Daniel Pauly have launched the Africa-UBC Oceans & Fisheries Visiting Fellows Program, whose goal is to inspire exceptional young African researchers to develop ocean and freshwater sustainability solutions.
Rashid Sumaila is a professor and Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in the Fisheries Economics Research Unit at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries and the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia. His research focuses on bioeconomics, marine ecosystem valuation and the analysis of global issues such as fisheries subsidies, marine protected areas, illegal fishing, climate change, marine plastic pollution, and oil spills. Sumaila has experience working in fisheries and natural resource projects in Norway, Canada and the North Atlantic region, Namibia and the Southern African region, Ghana and the West African region and Hong Kong and the South China Sea. Dr. Sumaila received his Ph.D. (Economics) from the University of Bergen and his B.Sc. from the Ahmadu Bello University. Sumaila is widely published and cited. He won the 2017 Volvo Environment Prize and was named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2019.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Director of the Institute for the Oceans
- Professor and Director of the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries
Dr. William Cheung is a Professor and Director of the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, at the University of British Columbia. He is a Canada Research Chair in Ocean Sustainability and Global Change. He studies the nexus of food-climate-biodiversity in the ocean. He is the Principal Investigator of the Changing Ocean Research Unit at UBC. He serves as Director for a 6-year SSHRC Partnership "Solving the Sustainability Challenges at the Food-Climate-Biodiversity Nexus." He is an international leader in developing and using scenarios and models to explore solution options and pathways to desirable and sustainable ocean futures. His work addresses policy-relevant research questions and cuts across multiple disciplines, from oceanography to ecology, economics and social sciences. His research ranges from local to global scales.
William has published over 220 peer-reviewed papers and more than 50 book chapters and reports. He is actively involved in international and regional initiatives that bridge science and policy. For instance, he was a Coordinating Lead Author in the Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in the Changing Climate and core author of the Synthesis Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a Lead Author of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Global Assessment. He has received multiple international and national awards and recognitions, including the Prix d'Excellence Award of the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas, the E. R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship, and named by Reuters as the top 20 world's most influential climate scientists.
William obtained his BSc in Biology and M.Phil. from the University of Hong Kong. He worked for WWF Hong Kong for two years, after which he completed his PhD in Resource Management and Environmental Studies at UBC. From 2009 to 2011, he was a Lecturer in Marine Ecosystem Services at the School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia.
Dr. William Cheung is the director of the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries at the University of British Columbia. His main research areas include understanding the responses and vulnerabilities of marine ecosystems and fisheries to global change and examining trade-offs in managing and conserving living marine resources. William obtained his BSc in Biology and M.Phil. from the University of Hong Kong. He worked for WWF Hong Kong for two years, after which he completed his Ph.D. in Resource Management and Environmental Studies at UBC. From 2009 to 2011, he was Lecturer in marine ecosystem services at the University of East Anglia. He has published over 150 peer-reviewed publications. William is also actively involved in international and regional initiatives that bridge science and policy.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Executive Director of TMT
Duncan Copeland is the Executive Director of TMT, an international not-for-profit providing fisheries intelligence, analysis, and capacity assistance to developing maritime States. Over the past 20 years he has held a variety of fisheries management and monitoring, control and surveillance advisory roles to governments and inter-governmental organizations, and on oceans programmes for international NGOs. With a career focus on the ‘pointy-end' of IUU fishing and associated crime, he works closely with all relevant stakeholders, from community to ministerial-level groups, and across fisheries enforcement agencies. One of the four founders, he has been with TMT since the organization's establishment in 2014.
Elaine grew up in Toronto and Hong Kong, two very urbanized cities, but was always fascinated by nature and loved going on hikes and to the beaches. She completed her BSc in Biology at University of Western Ontario.
Through a field course, she had her first exposure to fisheries science and conservation and ever since then she was hooked. Following that passion, she went to Vancouver Island University to complete a post-degree diploma in Fisheries and Aquaculture. During her time there, she got to be involved with a lot of salmon conservation and habitat restoration work with local communities around the island.
After graduation, she worked for the Ontario government briefly, doing fieldwork collecting data and researching stream productivity and biodiversity in streams across the province. She is excited to be back out west and joining the Sea Around Us team to research on our impacts on fish populations on a global scale. In her free time, she likes to go hiking, fishing, play badminton and softball.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor
- Member of the Board
Jennifer Jacquet is an associate professor in the Department of Environmental Studies at New York University. She is also deputy director of NYU's Center for Environmental and Animal Protection. She completed her Ph.D. at UBC in 2009 working with Daniel Pauly and the Sea Around Us. She is the recipient of an Alfred P. Sloan research fellowship and a Pew fellowship in marine conservation. She is the author of Is Shame Necessary? New Uses for an Old Tool (2015) and The Playbook: How to Deny Science, Sell Lies, and Make a Killing in the Corporate World (2022).
Job Titles:
- Chairman
- Professor of Marine Ecology at the University of Western Australia
Jessica is a professor of Marine Ecology at the University of Western Australia and co-founder of Blue Abacus. She grew up in Saudi Arabia and obtained her SCUBA diving ticket at 15. This allowed her to get a closeup view of marine life at an early age. Her lab focuses on conservation-driven research, with particular attention to the contribution of highly protected MPAs to the rebuilding of resilient oceans. She pioneered the development of mid-water Baited Remote Underwater Video Systems to further our understanding of open ocean wildlife such as tunas, sharks and marine mammals. She is a big fan of big data.
Katia holds a BSc in Oceanology and a master's degree in Biological Oceanography from the Fundação Universidade Federal do Rio Grande (1990 and 1995), as well as a Ph.D. in Resource Management and Environmental Studies from the University of British Columbia (2005). She is currently an associate professor III at the Federal University of Sergipe. She has experience in ichthyology, ecology and fisheries, with a special focus on the following topics: northeastern Brazil, commercial and recreational fisheries, albacore, fish growth, ecological modelling using Ecopath, shrimp and common fish names. Katia has mentored students in the Scientific and Technological Initiation Scholarship Program at the Federal University of Sergipe and is currently a member of the Coordinating Committee of the Institutional Scientific Initiation Scholarship Program. She is also the representative of the Federal University of Sergipe in the FishBase Consortium.
Job Titles:
- Database Software Engineer
Since his first direct contact with computers in 1982 at the "Station Marine de Villefranche-sur-Mer" in France, Nicolas has always been fascinated by their capacity for information storage and data analyses in Systematics.
It took him two master's degrees to acquire a combination of biological oceanography background and computer engineering skills to end up in the Biodiversity Informatics unit at the Museum of Natural History in Paris (MNHN, 1992-2005) where he obtained a Doctorate (PhD) on this subject.
Patricia was born in the Philippines and moved to Canada when she was almost two years old.
As of 2022, she is finishing a degree in Biology with a concentration in Marine Biology at the University of Victoria. For as long as she can remember, she has wanted to become a marine biologist.
Patricia has always loved the ocean and she calls it her ‘happy place,' where she feels most at peace. In her free time, she is often outside either on a hike or tide-pooling. She lives for the outdoors and she believes that's where her passion comes from. This passion has grown after obtaining her scuba certifications, which have allowed her to see the ocean from a whole new perspective. This new vision has also increased Patricia's motivation to do whatever she can to help conserve marine ecosystems.
She is excited to be joining the Sea Around Us team and learning from our researchers.
Valentina Ruiz Leotaud is a Venezuelan-born multimedia and multi-platform journalist. She has +15 years of work experience covering local and international news for different media outlets and platforms. She holds a Master's Degree in Journalism from the University of British Columbia and was a fellow of the International Reporting Program. She joined the Sea Around Us in 2016 and, since then, has been in charge of the media outreach aimed at bringing public attention to the project's research. She's also proficient in all things social media.