People

Juan José Alava

Ph.D., Marine Ecotoxicology/Ocean Pollution

University of British Columbia

Juan José Alava is a marine eco-toxicologist and conservation biologist, working as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries (IOF), University of British Columbia (UBC). His research interests are broad and include environmental toxicology and marine ecotoxicology; food web-bioaccumulation modelling of pollutants and climate change; marine mammals; sea turtles; seabirds; fisheries science and management, climate change, environmental impact and risk assessments, conservation biology; tropical biodiversity and parasitology.

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Marjo Vierros

Ph.D., Marine Biology

University of British Columbia

Marjo Vierros is the director of Coastal Policy and Humanities Research. She is also a senior associate at the Global Ocean Forum, a past visiting fellow at the Liu Institute for Global Issues at the University of British Columbia, and formerly an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS) and its Traditional Knowledge Initiative. She has extensive experience in marine policy, tropical marine ecology and coastal management in the Caribbean, Central America, Bermuda and the Pacific.

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Suzanne von der Porten

Ph.D., Environment and Resource Studies

University of British Columbia

Dr. Suzanne von der Porten is visiting faculty at Quest University, Canada, and an independent consultant with Indigenous governance and environmental governance clientele. Her postdoctoral research at Simon Fraser University focused on the changing roles of Indigenous coastal nations, governments, and industry in relation to marine conservation. Suzanne holds a Ph.D. in Environment and Resource Studies from the University of Waterloo, and a B.Sc. and an MBA from the University of Victoria.

 

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Derek Tittensor

Ph.D., Biology

UNEP-WCMC

Derek Tittensor is a Senior Marine Biodiversity Scientist at the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) in Cambridge, and Adjunct Professor in the Biology Department at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. His research examines human impacts on biodiversity in the oceans, large-scale modelling of ecosystems from first principles, and the distribution and biogeography of marine species. His work is a combination of theoretical modelling, statistical analysis, field observation, and experiments.

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Rashid Sumaila

Ph.D., Economics

University of British Columbia

Dr. Ussif Rashid Sumaila is Professor and Director of the Fisheries Economics Research Unit at the UBC Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries. He specializes in bioeconomics, marine ecosystem valuation and the analysis of global issues such as fisheries subsidies, IUU (illegal, unreported and unregulated) fishing and the economics of high and deep seas fisheries.

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Louisa Wood

Ph.D., Geography

UNEP-WCMC

Louisa Wood is a Head of Development at the UNEP-WCMC. Wood has a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of British Columbia and 9 years of experience working on a variety of marine conservation, fisheries, and marine protected area (MPA) projects, spanning a range of issues including: marine ecology; illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fisheries; capacity building; MPA monitoring, planning, and compliance; and spatial decision support.

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Colette Wabnitz

Ph.D., Geography

University of British Columbia

Colette Wabnitz is interested in understanding the functioning of ecosystems, how they respond to human pressures and natural forcing, and the design of measures for the sustainable use of their resources and the long term conservation of their services. Her current research focuses on developing global and regional scenarios, models and databases for oceans assessment under global change. Colette obtained her PhD from UBC, was a PostDoc Fellow at UBC and the Pacific Island Fisheries Science Centre in Hawai’i, then spent 4 years as a Fisheries Scientist for the Secretariat of the Pacific Community in New Caledonia.

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Lydia Teh

Ph.D., Resource Management and Environmental Studies

University of British Columbia

Lydia’s research examines the social, economic, and ecological dynamics of marine fisheries, with a special focus on small-scale fisheries. Her interdisciplinary research cuts across fields from human ecology to biodiversity conservation, and has taken her to work with fishing communities in Sabah, Malaysia and Fiji. Lydia applies empirical methods and modelling approaches in her research, and has published in the topics of fisher behaviour, marine protected area design, coral reef trade, ecotourism, and climate change adaptation.

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