Professional Experience
Eric Quaempts has served as the Director for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation’s (CTUIR) Department of Natural Resources (DNR) since 2004. Prior to working for CTUIR, Eric spent eight years as a Wildlife Biologist in the CTUIR DNR’s Wildlife Program and eight years on the Umatilla National Forest where his career development included inter-disciplinary rotations in Forestry, Wildlife, Range, Reforestation, Fisheries, and Fire Management Programs on the Walla Walla Ranger District.

As the CTUIR’s DNR Director, he developed and implemented the First Foods management approach in 2006 and has directed the implementation of the CTUIR DNR’s River and Upland Visions to facilitate management in support of First Foods. In implementing the mission, he oversees Administration, Cultural Resources Protection, Water Resources, Fisheries, Wildlife, Range/Ag, Forestry, Energy and Environmental Sciences, and First Foods Policy programs, who work throughout a geographically extensive and diverse area of Tribal rights and interests.

Eric served as the Oregon Tribal representative to the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board from 2009 – 16, including five as co-chair, and currently serves on the Oregon Water Resources Commission.

In August of this year, the Ecological Society of America recognized Eric with its ’s 2023 Regional Policy Award, which “recognizes an elected or appointed policymaker with an outstanding record of informing decision-making with ecological science.”

Education
Eric earned his Bachelor of Science in Wildlife Science from Oregon State University in 1990 and has a professional certification in Fire and Land Management with graduate level credits from Colorado State University.

Personal
An enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, Eric has spent most of his life living on the Umatilla Indian Reservation, where his cultural and personal experiences contributed to the development of the CTUIR’s First Foods management approach.

Eric’s personal interests include family (his daughter, Sascha, is 13), fly-fishing, photography, biking, traveling, cooking, and dining.

Matthew Savoca is an ecosystem ecologist whose research focuses on anthropogenic change through the lens of marine predators. He is currently a Research Associate at the Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University. Matthew completed his Ph.D. in Ecology at the University of California, Davis, where he studied why marine animals mistake plastic debris for prey items. More recently, he has investigated how microplastics flow through pelagic food webs, using Monterey Bay, California as a model ecosystem to study these processes. Internationally, Matthew participates in expert groups that harmonize methods to monitor plastics and other pollutants in marine systems. He is now leading a project for the UN Ocean Decade under the SmartNet Program, a joint ICES-PICES initiative, whose primary objective is to identify global bioindicators of plastic ingestion, a crucial aspect in assessing the ecological impacts of plastic pollution. In recognition of his service to the PICES mission, Matthew was the recipient of the 2022 Zhu-Peterson Early Career Scientist Award.

Viv Tulloch is a conservation decision scientist researching innovative solutions for managing, conserving, and protecting marine species and natural resources, with a special interest in cetaceans. Viv completed her Ph.D in Quantitative Decision Science and Ecological Modelling at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions, University of Queensland, Australia, where she researched the impacts of multiple disturbances including climate change on coastal and pelagic systems. She has worked on a diverse range of problems globally, from inclusive regional cumulative effects assessment for salmon-linked ecosystems of British Columbia; to ridge-to-reef MPA planning across the Coral Triangle; finding cost-effective mitigation cetacean bycatch around Australia; and understanding the impacts of whaling and climate change on whales and krill across Southern oceans. Viv is a member of the IWC Ecosystem Modelling and Climate Change Subcommittees; and the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada Marine Mammals Subcommittee. Viv is currently a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of British Columbia, where she is developing multi-species models to understand the effects of anthropogenic change on salmon and endangered killer whales.

Jean-Olivier Irisson is a computational ecologist. After graduating from the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, he studied the behaviour of tropical fish larvae and its implication for population connectivity for his Masters and PhD at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Perpignan (France) as well as for his post-doc at the University of Miami. Since 2009, he is an associate professor at Sorbonne Université, in the Laboratoire d’Océanographie de Villefranche (Southern France). He leads the plankton ecology team and is involved in long term monitoring programs as well as research on plankton ecology, at the interface between environmental and computer sciences.

Sukgeun Jung is a professor majoring in fisheries science at Jeju National University (2010-present), Korea. Sukgeun received B.Sc. from Seoul National University in 1987, M.S. from National Fisheries University of Pusan in 1989, and Ph.D. from University of Maryland, College Park with emphasis in fisheries science in 2002. Sukgeun worked at Chesapeake Biological laboratory for PostDoc under Professor Edward D. Houde from 2002 to 2006, after returning to Korea, worked as a fisheries researcher at National Institute of Fisheries Science (2006-2010) and participated in writing the 5-th Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Report, Working Group 2 “Ocean” (2010-2014) . Her study areas include climate change, fisheries oceanography, stock assessment, fish ecology, mathematical biology, and biostatistics.

Dr. Toru Miyama is a Senior Scientist in physical oceanography at the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC). He received his PhD from Kyoto University and previously worked at the University of Hawaii before joining JAMSTEC. His research interests include the dynamics of ocean current variability, marine heatwaves, and the development of ocean prediction systems. He is passionate about sharing achievements in oceanography with the general public. In line with this, he updates a website called Kuroshio-Oyashio Watch every week to explain ocean current predictions to Japanese citizens.

Guebuem Kim is a professor of the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Seoul National University, Korea. He studies marine and environmental biogeochemistry, specifically on the fluxes of chemical species through the atmosphere, groundwater, and rivers to the ocean, and on the transport, cycling, and sedimentation of chemical species in the ocean, atmosphere, and lake. He takes advantages of various radionuclides for tracing such environmental processes. His recent main research topics include (1) submarine groundwater discharge and associated fluxes of trace elements, organic matter, and nutrients, (2) biogeochemistry of trace elements, organic matter, and nutrients in the marginal seas of the northwestern Pacific Ocean, and (3) biogeochemical mechanisms regulating coastal health problems such as outbreaks of Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning (PSP) or red tides in coastal waters of Korea.

Dr. Jorge Mardones is a senior researcher at the Center for Harmful Algae Studies (CREAN)/Fisheries development Institute (IFOP) in Puerto Montt, Chile. He specializes in phytoplankton ecology, toxicology and taxonomy. His research interests lie on understanding bloom dynamics of toxic phytoflagellates in fjordic systems based on cell culturing, genetics, toxin chemistry and pigments biomarkers. Recently, he is particularly interested in fish-killing algae working with novel in vitro cell line assays. He produced the first complete manual for phytoplankton identification in the south of Chile. Currently, he is leading a citizen science initiative aiming to monitor toxic microalgae using low-cost technology and a project that seeks to eliminate the use of mice for the detection of paralytic shellfish toxins in southern Chile.

Dr. Changming Dong is a professor and the dean of the School of Marine Sciences at Nanjing University of information Science and Technology (NUIST). Changming obtained Ph.D. on physical oceanography at Columbia University in 2002. From 2002-2004, Changming worked at Princeton University and University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) as a post-doctoral researcher. From 2004-present, Changming has been working as a research professor at UCLA an adjunct professor at El Camino College. Changming joined the faculty in NUIST in 2014. His research interests include the oceanic multi-scale dynamics, regional ocean modelling, experimental geophysical fluid dynamics, and the artificial intelligence oceanography. He has published more than 170 peer-reviewed papers and 6 academic books.

Adrianne Akmajian is a marine ecologist for the Makah Tribe in northwest Washington State. She completed her Master’s in Marine and Estuarine Science at Western Washington University studying harmful algal bloom toxins ingesting by free-ranging sea lions on the Washington coast. Her studies focus on marine species and resources important to the Makah Tribe. Current projects range from studies on marine snails to gray whales and frequently focus on animal health and predator-prey dynamics and the effects of a changing marine environment.

Bobbie Buzzell is a fisheries biologist in the Aquatic Invasive Species Division at the Lummi Natural Resources Department in Bellingham, Washington. She received both her B.Sc. (2012) and M.Sc. (2021) from Western Washington University (WWU) in Bellingham. Her master’s thesis investigated biotic resistance of European green crab (EGC) via predation by river otters in Makah Bay on the Makah Indian Reservation, Washington. Bobbie was a 2019 Washington Sea Grant Science Communication Fellow and received the 2021 WWU Biology Program Teaching Award. Bobbie now leads trapping efforts and research of European green crab on Lummi Nation tidelands. Her current focus includes maximizing trapping efficiency and reducing densities of invasive EGC, mapping the distribution and abundance of invasive EGC, and developing a baseline of eelgrass habitat during the early phases of EGC invasion. Bobbie also works closely with the Northwest Indian College and Salish Sea Research Center to engage students with Lummi Natural Resource Department training and research opportunities.

Joshua Charleson grew up with his mother, father, and 5 older siblings in the Hesquiaht Community of Hot Springs Cove on IR#5. I am a happily married father of three that has a deep love and connection to the ocean, shorelines, rivers, and everything that water connects in the Nuu-chah-nutlh Territory that I call home. As a Hesquiaht I grew up as a salt water person and have remained a salt water person working in and around the ocean my whole life. The First paid Job that I had was as a deckhand in 2002 for my father Stephen Charleson on the Sashmaray II; fishing Area A Sockeye in Hesquiaht and Ahousaht Traditional Waters. I’ve worked as a commercial fisherman, in Tourism as a kayak, fishing, water taxi, coastal hiking, and Nuu-chah-nulth educational guide, in Fisheries Management, as a fisheries technician, as a Hesquiaht land use planner, as the Hesquiaht Chief Councillor, and most recently as the relationship’s director for the Coastal Restoration Society. My goal is to leave the oceans and everything that it connects in a healthy and thriving state so that it can take care of the next generations the way it has taken care of me and my family our entire lives.

Crysta Stubbs is the Science Department Director with Coastal Restoration Society, an environmental non-profit based out of Vancouver Island, BC. Crysta is a graduate of the University of Guelph where she obtained her Bachelor of Science in Zoology. Crysta moved to the west coast of Canada in 2018 where she worked as a vessel captain, adventure guide and marine sciences educator before taking on a role with Coastal Restoration Society as a Biologist in 2020. Crysta works alongside Indigenous governments and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada on a pilot project on the coast of Vancouver Island that aims to control and mitigate the spread of European green crab within British Columbia and collect integral information that will guide future management efforts.

Dr. Hyo-Bang Moon is a Professor at the Department of Marine Science and Convergence Engineering, Hanyang University, Korea. He is an environmental analytical chemist with good knowledge in environmental chemistry, wildlife ecotoxicology, and human exposure to persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and emerging contaminants. He got a PhD degree from Pukyong National University in 2003. During 1999-2010, he had worked for the National Institute of Fisheries Science as a research scientist. Since 1999, he has published over 230 peer-reviewed articles (including 59 domestic journals) which are related to marine pollution, bioaccumulation, analytical method development, biomonitoring, and human exposure to POPs and emerging contaminants. His current research projects include an investigation on environmental fate and bioaccumulation processes of POPs and emerging contaminants in fresh/coastal waters, top predatory wildlife species (e.g., sharks, marine mammals, and birds), and human. He was selected as a POPs review committee (POPRC) under the Stockholm Convention of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) during 2020-2024. He is serving as associate editors in Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety (EES) and Frontiers in Marine Science (Marine Pollution), and editorial board members of Chemosphere, Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology (BECT), Journal of Emerging Contaminants, and several domestic journals.

Max Lindmark is an ecologist at the Institute of Marine Research, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Lysekil, Sweden, where he also was a postdoctoral researcher until 2022. He received his Ph.D. in 2020 from the Institute of Coastal Research at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, and his M.Res. from the University of Aberdeen in 2015. Max studies how climate change affects aquatic organisms with the aim to contribute to sustainable management. In particular, he’s interested in understanding how warming affects the distribution, growth and body size of aquatic ectotherms, using experimental and observational data combined with mathematical and statistical models. Recently he started working on integrating species range shifts into models of body size changes in marine fishes in a statistical spatiotemporal modelling framework. He’s also interested in process-based food web modelling, and the combined impact of climate change and fishing on food web structure and fisheries yield.

Mayumi Arimitsu is a research ecologist with the U. S. Geological Survey Alaska Science Center in Juneau, Alaska, USA. She earned an M.Sc. and PhD in fisheries at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She leads the Pelagic Ecosystem Component and the forage fish monitoring project within the Gulf Watch Alaska long-term marine ecosystem monitoring program. Her current work focuses on seabirds and forage fish ecology, marine predator-prey interactions, and climate change stressors on coastal marine ecosystems.

Tatsuya Sakamoto is an isotope ecologist at the Instituto Português do Mar e da Atmosfera (Portuguese Institute of the Sea and Atmosphere) in Lisbon, Portugal, and works as a JSPS Overseas Research Fellow. He was a JSPS Postdoctoral Fellow at the Japan Fisheries Research and Education Agency until 2022 and received his PhD from the University of Tokyo in 2019. His wish is to explain the mechanisms driving fluctuations in marine fish populations, particularly sardines and anchovies around the world. Using stable isotope ratios in incrementally growing tissues of fish and cephalopods (e.g. otoliths, eye lenses), he seeks to extract the history of their migration, environment and physiological state to understand how environmental fluctuations affect species' life history traits. He also develops interdisciplinary frameworks to interpret isotope chronology data, which is often noisy and influenced by variable factors, to better understand the life of marine organisms and support fisheries management.

Dr. Briana Abrahms is an Assistant Professor in the University of Washington Department of Biology’s Center for Ecosystem Sentinels and holds the inaugural Boersma Endowed Chair in Natural History and Conservation. Her research program integrates field ecology, animal bio-logging technology, earth observation, and big data analytics to advance understanding of the causes and consequences of wildlife responses to global change in marine and terrestrial systems. By bridging studies across ecosystems, scales, and taxa, her research enhances basic ecological theory while generating knowledge and tools that bolster capacity to conserve the natural world. Prior to joining UW, she received her Ph.D. from the University of California-Berkeley’s Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management and was a Presidential Management Postdoctoral Fellow in the Climate and Ecosystems Group at NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center.

Nick Bond is a principal research scientist with the Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean and Ecosystem Studies (CICOES) of the University of Washington (UW). He has a Ph.D. in Atmospheric Sciences from the University of Washington. His research focuses on the weather and climate of the Pacific Northwest and the linkages between the climate and marine ecosystems of the North Pacific and Alaskan Arctic. Much of this work has been carried out under the broad umbrella of the Ecosystems and Fisheries-Oceanography Coordinated Investigations (EcoFOCI) program of NOAA.

Kaoru Hattori is a Head of Pinniped Group, at Fisheries Resources Institute, Fisheries Research and Education Agency, Japan. She received her PhD through a study on conservation ecology of sea otters in Far East at the University of Hokkaido in 2003. Currently she is engaged in works related to the stock assessment and management of Steller sea lions (SSLs). Her recent studies include ecology of SSLs and interactions between pinnipeds and fisheries based on field works.

Barbara Muhling is a research scientist at the University of California – Santa Cruz, based at the NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, CA. She completed her PhD in Perth, Australia, and did her postdoc on the spawning dynamics of tunas in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea, through the NOAA Southeast Fisheries Science Center in Miami, Florida. Her current research focuses on the distribution and ecology of pelagic fishes in the California Current System, and the broader North Pacific. She is particularly interested in how these species may respond to environmental variability and climate change, as well as the potential impacts of shifting species distributions on fisheries and fishing communities. She is a member of the CLIOTOP Scientific Steering Committee, and has co-chaired working groups on climate change and species distributions through PICES and NOAA.

I’m working as professor of Division of Marine Environment and Resources, Faculty of Fisheries Sciences, Hokkaido University, for 17 years. My main research subject has been an understanding of the effects of climate change and human activities on seabirds. I explore mechanisms underlying the association between global/local climate and seabird’s foraging/breeding biology using long-term data set of phenology, diet, hatching/fledging success and chick growth of penguins, auklets, murres, gulls, and shearwaters in the Arctic, sub-arctic, boreal and Antarctic regions. As flexibility of foraging behavior is likely to be a key mechanism, I’m trying to relate foraging location, diving and feeding behavior and activity budget to the changes of prey availability by using bio-logging techniques. During the course of the study, I’m also interested in anthropogenic stressors at sea and impacts on seabirds. Collaborating with geochemists, I’m developing technics to monitor and map the level of offshore marine pollution (mercury, POPs and micro plastics) using seabirds as indicator. I’m also involved in the risk assessments for offshore wind farm on seabirds and in the arrangement of seabird colony database.

Dr. Yun-Wei Dong is a professor at Fisheries College, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, China. He received his Ph.D. degree at Beijing Normal University in 2002. He is interested in investigating the impacts of climate change on the distribution and adaptation of intertidal species from different levels of biological organization, from individual physiology to biogeographical patterns, using both experimental approaches and modeling. Recently, his team is also working on the mapping of mariculture with the integration of physiological traits and species distribution models. These findings will be important for understanding the sensitivity of aquaculture to future climate change.

Nerea is a marine ecologist and a project scientist at the UCSC and the Environmental Research Division (NOAA, Monterey, USA) specializing in the conservation of large pelagic species. She has a PhD in Fisheries and Conservation from AZTI (Spain) and completed her first postdoc at the Inter- American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) (San Diego, USA) and the second one at UCSC-NOAA. Her research focuses on the conservation and management of pelagic species taken incidentally on diverse fisheries. Her main research interests are ecological modeling, spatial ecology, oceanography, and ecosystem-based management approaches for the conservation of marine top predators. Her current research aims to describe future spatial distribution of Highly Migratory Species (HMS) under different climate change scenarios in the California Current System (CCS) and using Species Distribution Models (SDM). Nerea collaborates with different marine institutes from Europe and assist PhD students working on fisheries and habitat use of elasmobranchs. She is co-founder of the mobulaconservation project NGO (mobulaconservation.org) working for the protection of mobulid rays in the Gulf of California.

Jessie is a marine ecologist working with the Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research (CIMAR) and the NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC). Jessie has a primary background in pelagic and midwater ecology, and more recently reef ecology. She is interested in how oceanographic processes and human factors influence community dynamics and species distributions, and has expertise in quantitative modeling, satellite and ocean model data, and fisheries acoustics. Jessie is particularly interested in better understanding scales of ecosystem variability in the face of a changing climate, and using this knowledge to inform management of living marine resources.

Dr. Xu is a research assistant in School of Oceanography, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Her research focuses on fish habitat assessment, fisheries resource conservation, and marine protected area effectiveness assessment. Her current research focuses on addressing the effects of habitat and conservation measure interactions on biological communities and providing recommendations for the design and optimization of marine protected areas. She has also published a series of research papers, including habitat selection of rocky reef fishes and marine protected area effectiveness assessment. She is also the leader of several Chinese Ministry of Natural Resources Key Laboratory Open Fund projects. She is responsible for assessing the impacts of marine protected areas on fish communities.

I am a Research Scientist at the Pacific Biological Station with Fisheries and Oceans Canada in Nanaimo, BC. The goal of my program is to develop tools to facilitate communication and decision-making at the interface between science and management for Pacific salmon. My research interests focus on the development of reference points for Pacific salmon, run-size forecasting methods, decision-support tools that integrate harvest, hatchery and habitat impacts for salmon, and assessment approaches that pair Indigenous Knowledge with Western science. Recent projects include the evaluation of assessment methods that account for time-varying population parameters in stock-recruitment relationships and the provision of management advice that considers these changes, and the development of analytical tools for evaluating extinction risk for species with patchy or limited data (with Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, COSEWIC). I started my research career studying zooplankton in freshwater lakes in eastern Canada, followed by a PhD in salmon assessment and management at Simon Fraser University, and post-doctoral research at the University of Washington incorporating climate variables into groundfish assessments.

Ashley Rowden is a Principal Scientist - Marine Ecology at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, and a Professor of Marine Biology at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. His research interests are largely focused on examining the drivers and processes that control and maintain biodiversity in the marine environment. Specifically, he’s interested in exploring the relationship between the biodiversity of seafloor fauna and habitat heterogeneity, productivity, and disturbance. To understand these relationships, he has been involved in research in a range of marine habitats from the intertidal to the deepest depth of the ocean. Some of his research has concerned applied aspects of marine science: such as determining the effects of fishing, aquaculture, and seabed mining on seafloor fauna, and the production of habitat suitability models, environmental classifications, and ecological risk assessments for conservation and management purposes. Ashley is currently working on projects looking at the impact of disturbance by seabed mining and turbidity currents on seafloor communities in the deep sea, and those that involve the development of species distribution models for the management of trawling impacts on vulnerable marine ecosystems, including on seamounts.

Dr. Piera Carpi is a fisheries scientist, with a M.Sc. in marine biology and a Ph.D. in marine biology and ecology. She has worked in a variety of international institutes and her focus over the years has been on the stock assessment and management of mostly pelagic species, for both data-rich and data-poor stocks. She is currently working at the Institute of Marine Research (IMR) in Bergen (Norway) where she is part of the sustainable development team. Here, under the umbrella of the EAF-Nansen Program of FAO, she provides support to fisheries scientists in developing countries to help them with the data collection, data analysis and stock assessment of key commercial species. Before joining IMR, Piera was a postdoctoral researcher at the International Pacific Halibut Commission (IPHC) in Seattle. Her role within the Commission was to help in the development of an area-based Management Strategy Evaluation (MSE). This MSE allowed the definition of harvest strategies directly related to the movement and dynamics of the stock of Pacific Halibut as well as to the need of the fishery. During her time there she also compiled all the research available on Pacific Halibut since the beginning of the Commission and produced a comprehensive review of the ontogenetic migrations of this species.

Dr. Barbara Hutniczak is a Fisheries Policy Branch Manager at the International Pacific Halibut Commission (IPHC). In this role, she serves as the primary assistant and advisor to the IPHC’s Executive Director on all fisheries policy matters and provides advice and expertise on socio-economic aspects of Pacific halibut fisheries. In doing so, she provides advice, consultation, guidance, and review of fishery regulations and policies proposed to, or implemented by, the IPHC. Before taking the policy lead role, as the IPHC's economist, she developed a multiregional economic impact assessment of Pacific halibut fisheries along the Pacific coast.

Prior to joining the IPHC, Dr. Hutniczak worked as a policy analyst for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), where her focus was on best policies and practices in combating IUU fishing at the national and regional levels. She got her PhD in Economics with a focus on natural resources from the University of Southern Denmark in 2014.

Dr. David Wilson is the Executive Director of the International Pacific Halibut Commission (IPHC). As Executive Director he is responsible to the Commission who act to ensure the sustainable management of the Pacific halibut resource and the ecosystems that are impacted by its fisheries. Prior to joining the IPHC, Dr Wilson was focused on developing and delivering applied science programs for improved natural resource management outcomes, with a focus on tropical fisheries.

Originally from Australia, Dr Wilson has spent the majority of his professional working life abroad, involved in fisheries science institutional management, fisheries negotiation, and in developing and implementing multilateral and bilateral arrangements for the conservation and management of highly migratory fish stocks, and shared fish stocks in the Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean and Caribbean. Dr. Wilson obtained his Doctorate from James Cook University (Australia), in association with the Australian Institute of Marine Science and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (Panama).

Julie Claussen is a research biologist that has worked in the areas of sustainable fisheries management and the conservation of native fish populations. Recognizing the need for scientist to engage with natural resource constituents, Julie was one of the founding partners of the Fisheries Conservation Foundation where she now serves as Director of Operations. Her work focuses on effective ways to share science-based research with stakeholders so that decisions can be made for the long-term health of aquatic ecosystems. Julie is serves on the advisory council for Randy Olson’s ABT Narrative Training Course and has taught why this form is vital to effective communication. Her most recent communication endeavor has been serving on the development team for the American Fisheries Society Climate Communication Programs, that works with professional aquatic scientists on how to adjust their messaging to engage and stimulate their intended audiences.

Dr. Sayaka Sogawa is a senior research scientist at Fisheries Research and Education Agency of Japan (FRA). She was a fixed-term researcher at FRA until 2021, a postdoctoral researcher until 2018 and received her Ph.D. in 2013 at Yokohama National University. Her previous research focused broadly on marine ecosystems, biological oceanography and fisheries oceanography from the coast to open sea and from the surface to deep sea. Her recent interests are in socio-ecological systems and working on coastal ecosystems that are closely related to human social activities and how these changes affect fisheries and aquaculture. She’s also a member of the non-profit organization Discover Blue since graduate college which aims to build a society where we can live with the sea by helping more people understand the marine ecosystem based on professional and academic knowledge. She was a member of Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers of JICA in 2007-2009, and worked on coral reef surveys and public awareness of marine ecosystems at Djibouti in the Horn of Africa.

Marjorie “Maggie” Mooney-Seus is Communications Program Manager for NOAA Fisheries’ Alaska Fisheries Science Center. She manages a staff of nine, who are responsible for conducting and coordinating constituent relations, education, outreach, publications, graphics department, media relations and web/social media for the center. Before joining the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, she served as communications officer for NOAA Fisheries’ Greater Atlantic Regional Office in Gloucester, MA for nearly 7 years.

Prior to NOAA, Maggie was a consultant with MRAG Americas. In that capacity, she organized workshops and published reports on national and international marine resource management issues including IUU fishing, coastal monitoring indicators, ecosystem-based fishery management, the precautionary approach and the effectiveness of fisheries certification programs for Federal government agencies, international eNGOs and the World Bank. Maggie was instrumental in establishing the New England Aquarium Conservation Department, serving as Department Manager for 7 years. She held various private sector communications positions including MA/RI media spokesperson for a top 25 national bank, marketing coordinator for a Fortune 500 corporation and print and broadcast journalist. She has a Master’s degree from Tufts University in Urban and Environmental Policy and a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Massachusetts in Communications.

Hakase is a Researcher at the Application Laboratory, JAMSTEC. Hakase specializes in ocean biogeochemical modelling and he has contributed to the development and implementation of ocean and sea-ice biogeochemical modules into global models such as ACCESS-OM2 and CanESM5. Currently, Hakase aims to explore the short-term predictability of ocean biogeochemistry in the western North Pacific by developing a new operational ocean biogeochemical forecasting system within the framework of the Japan Coastal Ocean Predictability Experiment (JCOPE). Previously, Hakase did a postdoc at the University of Tasmania, Australia, where he contributed to better understanding of projected changes in marine heatwaves and their impacts on ocean biogeochemistry. In 2019, Hakase obtained his PhD in Earth and Ocean Sciences from the University of Victoria, Canada, where he contributed to better understanding of oceanic emission of dimethylsulfide (DMS) originating from sea-ice algae and phytoplankton in the Arctic. Hakase actively participates in several ongoing international research projects such as BEPSII, IAMIP2, OceanPrediction, and the two SCOR working groups, CICE2Clouds and DMS-PRO.

Khushboo will be joining Hatch Ltd as an Aquatics Environmental Consultant in July 2023 after completing a two years postdoctoral contract with the Hakai Institute and University of British Columbia. In her new position at Hatch Ltd, Khushboo will be looking at the social and environmental benefits/impacts of projects related to infrastructural developments, sustainable urban designs, renewable energy amongst others. She enjoys connecting information and people to make change, solve problems and find sustainable solutions. Khushboo has a PhD from the University of Auckland and the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in New Zealand, where she studied the interaction between terrestrial and oceanic environments. Khushboo earned her MSc from the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Growing up on the island of Mauritius where she is originally from, she developed a big interest in ocean risks in Small Island Developing States and Least Developed Countries. She is passionate about the environment, human-ocean interactions and sustainability.

Nobuharu Inaba is a research scientist in the Fisheries Engineering Research Team at Civil Engineering Research Institute for Cold Region, Public Works Research Institute, National Research and Development Agency in Japan. He has vigorously studied environmental-friendly biological control of harmful algal blooms (HABs), focusing on the interaction between HAB species and bacteria mainly inhabiting seagrasses and macroalgal beds. He earned his Ph.D. in Fisheries Sciences from Hokkaido University in 2016, and during his Ph.D., he worked as an invited researcher at NOAA Fisheries (Northwest Fisheries Science Center: NWFSC), USA. He was selected for full membership in Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Honor Society (USA), in 2023 for his scientific contribution to marine sciences. He now serves as a science committee member of the 20th International Conference on Harmful Algae (ICHA 2023) in Hiroshima, Japan.

Dr. Jorge Mardones is a senior researcher at the Center for Harmful Algae Studies (CREAN)/Fisheries development Institute (IFOP) in Puerto Montt, Chile. He specializes in phytoplankton ecology, toxicology and taxonomy. His research interests lie on understanding bloom dynamics of toxic phytoflagellates in fjordic systems based on cell culturing, genetics, toxin chemistry and pigments biomarkers. Recently, he is particularly interested in fish-killing algae working with novel in vitro cell line assays. He produced the first complete manual for phytoplankton identification in the south of Chile. Currently, he is leading a citizen science initiative aiming to monitor toxic microalgae using low-cost technology and a project that seeks to eliminate the use of mice for the detection of paralytic shellfish toxins in southern Chile.

Tae Gyu Park is a harmful algal bloom (HAB) biologist at National Institute of Fisheries Science (NIFS) in Korea. He earned a Ph.D. in HAB biology from the University of Tasmania, researching morphotaxonomy, genetic affinities and ecology of toxic dinoflagellates. He specializes in dinoflagellate ecology, monitoring methods and HAB management. His research is focused on bloom mechanisms of toxic dinoflagellates, early warning technique and mitigation of red tide. His particular interests are the spatio-temporal dynamics of fish-killing/toxic dinoflagellates using molecular detection methods and nation-wide HAB monitoring system including inshore and offshore waters for mitigation and management of HAB.

Kathy Coyne received her BS in chemistry and PhD in biochemistry from the University of Delaware. She recently retired from UD as an Associate Professor, where her research interests spanned coastal to pelagic environments, from mid-Atlantic estuaries to deep sea hydrothermal vents, as well as the ephemeral meltwater streams of Antarctic deserts. Coyne’s research was focused primarily on the biochemical and molecular ecology of HABs and other phytoplankton, and more recently, on the development and application of naturally occurring algicidal bacteria to prevent or mitigate HAB dinoflagellate blooms. As former Director of Delaware Sea Grant, Coyne also maintains close ties to outreach and communication efforts to transfer research tools and knowledge to stakeholder communities.

Heather Raymond is the Water Quality Initiative Director for The Ohio State University’s College of Food Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. In this role she helps coordinate applied interdisciplinary water quality research that addresses the needs of local, state, and federal partners and integrates research findings into extension outreach. Prior to accepting her position at OSU, Heather served as the State of Ohio Harmful Algal Bloom (HAB) Coordinator where she led development of the nation’s first HAB monitoring and reporting rules, assisted public water systems and lake managers respond to HABs, conducted applied research on HAB treatment in coordination with U.S. EPA and University partners, and taught webinars and workshops on HAB response. She serves on the GlobalHABs Scientific Steering Committee, National HAB Committee, Great Lakes HABs Collaborative Steering Committee and is a contributing author to state, federal, and international HAB guidance. She has over twenty years of water quality related experience and earned master’s degrees in science and public administration from Ohio University.

Zhiming Yu is a Senior Scientist of the Institute of Oceanology (IOCAS) and a professor of the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS). He studies on marine environmental sciences, especially Harmful Algal Bloom (HAB) mitigation. To overcome the drawback of HAB control with low removal efficiency by nature clay dispersal, he elaborated clay surface modification theory, methods improving removal efficiency of HAB cells, and successfully developed various modified clays. In the meantime, he proposed the method to control HABs using modified clays, which has much higher efficiency than naturel clay dispersal. Presently, MC is the most widely used method for the field mitigation of HABs in China.

Hiroaki is Professor at Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, the University of Tokyo. He is studying the role of marine organisms on food-web dynamics and biogeochemical cycle. The main targets are phytoplankton and zooplankton but covering from virus to whales. He has been led inter- and transdisciplinary projects such as Deep-Sea Ecosystem and Exploitation (GLOBEC), Population Outbreak of Marine Life (IMBER), Study of Kuroshio Ecosystem Dynamics for Sustainable Fisheries (IMBeR). He’s also keen for scientific contribution of ocean-related social issues and engaging national/international activities related to UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development and UN SDG14 “Life under Water”. One of the activities is a research and education project CREPSUM (Collaborative Research and Education Project in Southeast Asia for Sustainable Use of Marine Ecosystems, JSPS). He served as Chairperson of PICES Science Board from 2016 to 2019.

Jennifer Hoguet is a Research Biologist with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and is stationed at the Hollings Marine Laboratory in Charleston, South Carolina, U.S.A. As a member of the Biospecimen Science Group, her efforts focus primarily on standard reference material (SRM®) production and the standardization of protocols pertaining to tissue collection, processing and cryogenic archival into the NIST Biorepository. Of the many distinct collections housed within the Biorepository, Jennifer is the west coast regional POC for the federally mandated National Marine Mammal Tissue Bank (NMMTB), and the Project Lead for the Seabird Tissue Archival and Monitoring Project (STAMP). Established in 1992 and 1999, respectively, NMMTB and STAMP collections are valuable resources for long-term retrospective research. In support of NIST’s Biochemical and Exposure Science Group, Jennifer conducts organic contaminant analysis in tissues from a multitude of marine organisms (i.e., cetaceans, pinnipeds, seabirds, sea turtles and invertebrates) in attempts to elucidate temporal and spatial trends. Additionally, she is the Technical Project Lead responsible for measurement verification in several environmentally relevant SRMs (e.g., fish oil and mussel tissue).

Angela Danyluk is the Senior Environmental Specialist at the City of Vancouver. As the senior biologist for the City, Angela works across disciplines on projects and programs related to ecology, adaptation and sea level rise. Her practice includes systems thinking, creating policy, project management, engagement, and bringing people together. Angela has a BSc in marine biology and an MSc in ecological restoration and governance. She is a Registered Professional Biologist with the BC College of Applied Biology. Angela lives on the unceded traditional homelands of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations where she enjoys arts & culture, hiking and taking photographs of wildflowers.

Emily Howe is an aquatic ecologist at The Nature Conservancy’s cities, land, and water programs. She holds a Ph.D. from the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences at the University of Washington, with a focus on estuarine restoration and food web ecology in tidally-influenced ecosystems. My work integrates across ecosystem boundaries, investigating how landscape configuration and management shapes cross-boundary relationships for food webs, organisms, and ecosystem processes.

Philina English is a biologist at the Pacific Biological Station with Fisheries and Oceans Canada in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada. She received her PhD from Simon Fraser University in 2017. Her dissertation explored the conservation ecology of an elusive nocturnal bird, the whip-poor-will. For her postdoctoral research she shifted her focus to the marine environment and explored the impact of local climate velocities on the distributions and abundance of demersal fishes. Her current research focuses on the application of hierarchical and geostatistical models to ecology and conservation problems. Specifically, she is working on identifying relationships between the environment and productivity of important Canadian demersal fish stocks and on developing tools for quantifying the corresponding risks from a rapidly changing climate.

Allan Hicks is a quantitative scientist at the International Pacific Halibut Commission in Seattle, WA and is currently conducting a Management Strategy Evaluation for the Pacific halibut fishery. This involves conducting simulations to investigate various potential management procedures and working with stakeholders and managers that make up the IPHC Management Strategy Advisory Board in a stakeholder-guided process to provide advice to the Commission. Allan previously worked at NOAA's Northwest Fisheries Science Center and before then at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) in New Zealand conducting stock assessments and research for various fish stocks. He received a Ph.D. degree in fisheries from the University of Washington.

Dr. Noëlle Yochum is Senior Manager of Fishing Innovation and Sustainability at Trident Seafoods, with a Ph.D. from Oregon State University, M.S. from the College of William and Mary (VIMS), and B.S. from the University of California, San Diego. Her field and laboratory research is focused on finding innovative ways to mitigate and understand incidental impacts of fishing, including bycatch, discard mortality, and effects on fish habitat. This work is done through understanding fish behavior and improving fishing gear design and practices. Important to her work is collaboration, especially involvement by fishing industry partners, and technology development. Her projects include evaluating the effect of artificial light on fish behavior to increase fishing gear selectivity and catchability; using artificial intelligence to identify fish by species in video footage; and developing bycatch reduction devices. While her current research is focused on U.S. west coast and Alaska fisheries, she has conducted related work on the U.S. east coast and abroad.

Nadiah Wan Rasdi is an Associate Professor at Universiti Malaysia Terengganu's Faculty of Fisheries and Food Science (UMT). Universiti Malaysia Terengganu awarded her a Bachelor of Science in Marine Biology in 2009 and a Master of Science in Aquaculture in 2010. Her first job was as a tutor at Universiti Malaysia Terengganu (KUSTEM) from 2011 to 2012. She pursued her PhD in Aquaculture/Planktonology Live Feed Culture at Flinders University, Australia, under the Universiti Malaysia Terengganu Academic Staff Training Scheme, and graduated in 2016. Nadiah was offered a position as a University Lecturer (DS51) in UMT's Faculty of Fisheries and Food Sciences in October 2016. She has been a senior lecturer at FPSM UMT for approximately 4 years (since 2 October 2016 to date). Plankton as a ‘living capsule' that can deliver nutrients to larval fish and shrimp in the aquatic ecology and aquaculture is her study focus. This includes studying the effects of climate change on plankton biology, variety, abundance, growth, and reproduction. Besides that, she hopes her research will help improve live food nutrition for larval fish and shrimp. Her work will significantly improve aquaculture production and management, as well as bring fresh results to applied science. Her research aims to help maintain food security. Nadiah's current WoS and Scopus H-index is 10 with a total of 378 citations. As an academician, her research work and knowledge transfer were presented at various national and international level. Furthermore, she has presented 8 oral presentations in her research field, where seven (7) presentations were presented at international level and one (1) at national level. Nadiah gained administrative experiences when appointed as the Head of Aquatic Research Programme in Institute of Tropical Biodiversity and Sustainable Development, UMT (2020-2022), as well as the Academic Club Coordinator for Revolution of Fisheries Club (REVOF) in Faculty of Fisheries and Food Sciences, UMT from 2020 until 2025. Nadiah believed that these two administrative roles in faculty and institute are the essence of her contributions throughout the 6 years and 9 months as academician, and she hope to serve and contribute more for UMT growth and development. Nadiah hopes to become a nationally and regionally recognized academic leader in the field of Planktonology Live Food Culture in the near future, through extensive research, knowledge transfer, and mentoring activities.

Dr. Katherine Mills is a research scientist at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute in Portland, Maine. She earned her Ph.D. in Natural Resources at Cornell University. As a quantitative fisheries ecologist, Kathy studies marine ecosystem changes and fish-ecosystem-fishery relationships with a focus on the Gulf of Maine and Northeast US Shelf regions. Specifically, her research investigates (1) how physical and ecosystem conditions are changing; (2) how these changes affect fish populations, biological communities, and marine fisheries; and (3) how fisheries and fishing communities can effectively respond.

Much of her work is interdisciplinary, seeking to understand and inform management of fisheries as coupled social-ecological systems. This research integrates climate, ecological, social and economic information to link changes in the ecosystem to societal outcomes. Climate adaptation within marine fisheries has become a major recent focus, with emphases on assessing vulnerabilities, evaluating adaptation strategies, and providing new forms of information to support forward-looking planning by fishery participants, fishing communities and fishery managers. She is currently leading a global working group on Climate Resilient Fisheries to develop information, approaches, and tools for assessing and enhancing resilience to climate impacts in marine fisheries. This work will be continued and advanced at global, regional, and local scales through a UN Ocean Decade program she leads—Fisheries Strategies for Changing Oceans and Resilient Ecosystems by 2030 (FishSCORE). In addition, she is the lead author for the ‘Oceans and Marine Resources’ chapter of the US National Climate Assessment and serves as a chair of the ICES-PICES Strategic Initiative on Climate Change Impacts on Marine Ecosystems (SICCME).

Kalei Shotwell is a Research Fishery Biologist at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center (AFSC), NMFS, NOAA and holds a Ph.D. in Fisheries and Oceanography from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Kalei leads the development of the Ecosystem and Socioeconomic Profile (ESP) that is a standardized framework created to integrate ecosystem and socioeconomic factors into the stock assessment process to improve management advice. Kalei also conducts several groundfish stock assessments and has research projects investigating avenues for including essential fish habitat and climate information within those assessments. Kalei serves in several leadership roles, including chairing the Bering Sea Regional Action Plan and co-chairing the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Plan Team of the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council. Through these research projects and leadership roles, Kalei hopes to provide pathways for integrating ecosystem and socioeconomic information into our stock assessment portfolio and encourage open data science methods for enhancing transparency, reproducibility, and communication among scientists, stakeholders, and the public.