Experts

Ella M. Whitman is an American early career researcher at the Global Observatory on Planetary Health at Boston College (Massachusetts, USA).

Shakuntala H. Thilsted is a Danish aquatic food and nutrition expert, and Director of the Nutrition, Health and Food Security Impact Area Platform at CGIAR.

Torsten Thiele is a German economist and ocean finance expert affiliated with the Research Institute for Sustainability–Helmholtz Centre Potsdam (Germany). He is an Honorary Fellow at Plymouth Marine Laboratory (United Kingdom).

Eva Ternon is a French Research Scientist at the Université Sorbonne’s Laboratoire d’Océanographie de Villefranche (France).

Amy Swift is a British Research Analyst within the Ocean Program at the World Resources Institute and a member of the Ocean Panel Secretariat.

Georgina Sowman is a British general practitioner and Co-founder of Healthcare Ocean. She is a Physical Activity Clinical Champion with Sport England at the Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre, Sheffield Hallam University (Sheffield, United Kingdom).

Jan Yves Remy is a Caribbean international trade law and dispute settlement expert, Director of the Shridath Ramphal Centre of the University of the West Indies, Co-lead of the Remaking Trade for a Sustainable Future Project, and the World Trade Organization Chair for Barbados (St. Lucia/Barbados).

Hervé Raps is a French physician with expertise in environmental health, health information technology and clinical trials. He is the Physician Delegate for Research at the Centre Scientifique de Monaco, conducting awareness-raising and capacitybuilding activities on environmental health issues.

Radisti A. Praptiwi is an Indonesian environmental scientist. She is a lecturer in the Faculty of Health Sciences and Head of Sustainability Research Cluster at Esa Unggul University (Jakarta, Indonesia).

Arihiro Iwasaki is a Japanese marine natural product chemist. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Chemistry, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Chuo University (Tokyo, Japan).

Mohammad Mahmudul Islam is a Bangladeshi marine social scientist. He is an Associate Professor and Chairman of the Department of Coastal and Marine Fisheries at Sylhet Agricultural University (Bangladesh).

Richard Hixson is a British National Health Service (NHS) Consultant in Critical Care Medicine, a physician environmentalist, an Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer (University of Exeter, United Kingdom), a Member of the UK Ocean Decade Committee and NHS England’s Sustainable Procurement Forum, and Co-founder of Healthcare Ocean.

Lota Alcantara-Creencia is a Filipina fisheries technologist, marine biologist and coastal communities extensionist. She is a Professor at the College of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences of Western Philippines University, Palawan.

Philippa J. Cohen is an environmental social scientist and environmental justice adviser, an Adjunct Professor at James Cook University and the lead of the Marine Tenure Initiative.

Roberto G.S. Berlinck is a Brazilian chemist, Professor of Chemistry at the Universidade de São Paulo (Brazil) and Associate Editor of the American Chemical Society’s Journal of Natural Products.

Thomas Astell-Burt is a British-Australian urbanist, social scientist and epidemiologist. He is Professor of Cities and Planetary Health at the School of Architecture, Design and Planning, University of Sydney (Australia), and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow in Natur

Oliver S. Ashford is a British marine biologist. He is a Program Associate within the Ocean Program at World Resources Institute, a member of the Ocean Panel Secretariat, and Associate Researcher at the University of Exeter (United Kingdom).

Karen A. Alexander is a British human geographer working on coastal community wellbeing, and an Assistant Professor in Marine Governance and Blue Economy at Heriot-Watt University (Orkney, United Kingdom).

Mathew P. White is a British environmental psychologist at the University of Vienna (Austria).

Karyn Morrissey is an Irish economist focusing on the use of data-driven science to understand the role of the environment on human health in the Department of Technology, Management and Economics at the Technical University of Denmark

Christina is a Kenyan British environmental social scientist and Professor at Lancaster University

Johanna J. Heymans is a Professor of Ecosystem Modelling at the University of the Highlands and Islands in Scotland, and Executive Director of the European Marine Board in Belgium. She studied in South Africa and is of Namibian descent

William is an American scientist studying marine natural products drug discovery at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of California San Diego.

Philip is an American paediatrician, public health physician and epidemiologist. He is a Professor at Boston College (Massachusetts, USA), Director of the Program for Global Public Health and the Common Good and the Global Observatory on Planetary Health, and a Consultant Scientist to the Centre Scientifique de Monaco.

Lora is an American physician and epidemiologist and Chair of Oceans, Epidemiology and Health at the European Centre for Environment and Human Health of the University of Exeter Medical School (Cornwall, United Kingdom).

Jacqueline is a Senior Research Scientist based at the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute, Mombasa, Kenya. She is the recipient of the 2019 NK Panniker Award for capacity building from the IOC-UNESCO General Assembly. She has also served as the Co-chair of the Editorial Board of the 2^nd Edition of the Global Ocean Science Report.

Jacqueline is the immediate former President of the WIOMSA Board of Trustees.  Jacqueline is also a co-opted member of the Executive Committee of the Scientific Committee for Oceanic Research (SCOR). She has recently become the chair of the Africa Ocean Decade Taskforce under the IOC-UNESCO. She is also an expert on the Ocean Literacy Expert Group under IOC-UNESCO and has a special interest in the promotion of ocean learning through engagement with children.

Nationally, she has contributed to the development of the National Environmental Policy as a member of the National Steering Committee. She has been a mentor under the African Women Agricultural Research and Development Programme (AWARD). She has led the World Bank Funded Kenya Coastal Development Project (KCDP) where she supported community and institutional development projects. She has also served as a technical member of the National Blue Economy Technical Committee. She is the current National Coordinator for Marine Spatial Planning in Kenya.

Dr. Judith T. Kildow is founding Director Emeritus of the National Ocean Economics Program (NOEP) (www.OceanEconomics.org), located at the  Center for the Blue Economy (CBE), Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California, where she currently serves on their  Advisory Council and editorial board for their Journal of Ocean and Coastal Economics.  She is also on the Board of Trustees for the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, Boothbay Harbor, Maine.

She has a PhD in International Relations and Science Policy from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. Her early career as Associate Director for the Center for Marine Affairs at Scripps Institution of Oceanography established her as a founding member of the field of Ocean Policy. In 1999, her National Ocean Economics Program laid the foundation for the field of Ocean Economics.

For more than 50 years working, with scientists and engineers, she has taught and done research to provide evidence for policy makers and the public that oceans and coasts are valuable.

She served 28 years on the faculty of the Ocean Engineering Department at MIT, was Senior Social Scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, James W. Rote Distinguished Professor, California State University Monterey Bay, Research Faculty/Senior Fellow at Harvard University Kennedy School, University of Southern California Wrigley Institute, and University of Vermont, Gund Institute.

Her public service includes Presidential commissions, National Academy boards, federal and state commissions, corporate and editorial boards. She has published and lectured globally on coastal and ocean science policy, economics, and management.

Publications, lectures and awards and more details can be found on her longer CV at www.oceaneconomics.org

Peter Haugan is Programme Director at Institute of Marine Research, Norway, professor of oceanography at the Geophysical Institute, University of Bergen and past chair of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC of UNESCO).

He has more than 30 years of experience in marine scientific research and international ocean science coordination. The preparation and proclamation of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030) and the launch of the first ever Global Ocean Science Report (2017) are recent highlights.

His research interests include various aspects of physical oceanography with primary focus on the North Atlantic and Arctic Ocean as well as global ocean carbon cycling and climate.

He has expertise in polar oceanography and sea ice from working in the high Arctic and has also initiated and led research and education efforts in renewable energy including offshore wind. From 2019, he is in charge of international work with global development at the Institute of Marine Research.