Monday 31 October
Dr Vladimir Ryabinin is the Executive Secretary of the IOC, the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO, and Assistant Director-General of UNESCO.
He is an oceanographer, marine engineer, meteorologist, and climatologist. He originated several mathematical models for the ocean, atmosphere, wind waves, etc., and is an author of hundreds of scientific publications.
Since 1980s, Dr Ryabinin has been involved in various capacities in the activities of the United Nations and contributed to core design and coordination of such international initiatives, as the Global Ocean Observing System and the World Climate Research Programme.
The current work of IOC and Dr Ryabinin is focussed on creating a solid scientific foundation for managing the ocean sustainably, including through the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, 2021-2030.
Chief Executive Officer of Oceanário de Lisboa, S.A. and Board member of the Oceano Azul Foundation, João has a BSc in Aquatic Sciences from the Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas Abel Salazar, Porto, Portugal, and a postgraduate degree in Advanced Management from the Portuguese Catholic University.
He has been President of the European Union of Aquarium Curators since 2014 and a member of the Executive Committee of the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria, since 2013.
He is also a member of the Board of Trustees of Gil Foundation and the Portuguese Association of Zoos and Aquariums.
Throughout he’s career, he was also Manager of Telecabine Lisboa, Lda. (2007-2012), of Gil Foundation (2012-2015) and member of the Board of Directors of Fórum Empresarial da Economia do Mar (2010-2016).
Françoise Gaill is a deep sea biologist. Her research has focused on adaptation to extreme environments at the CNRS, particularly on adaptation and thermal development.
In charge of the scientific direction of the Environment and Sustainable Development Department, she developed the CNRS Institute of Ecology and Environment and supported the development of the French Oceanographic Fleet.
She has been involved in the UN World Ocean Assessment and in several UN actions (including SDGs, BBNJ, IOC UNESCO) for the French government. She is also the scientific vice-president of the Platform Ocean & Climate (POC), a platform aimed to provide civil society and decision-makers with new knowledge and insights on the issues, challenges and solutions at the interfaces between biodiversity, the ocean and climate.
Bruno Maquart studied agronomy, graduating from the National Agronomy Institute of Paris-Grignon, followed by the Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA – Condorcet class, 1992). On leaving the ENA, he joined the General Inspectorate for Social Affairs. For almost thirty years, his career has focused on two areas of public activity: culture and social affairs.
From 2001 to 2007, Bruno Maquart was the Managing Director of the Centre National d’Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou (Pompidou Centre) in Paris. From 2007 to 2010, he coordinated the Louvre Abu Dhabi project in the United Arab Emirates.
Appointed in 2012 as Assistant Director to the office of Marisol Touraine, minister for Social Affairs and Health, he then became its Director in November 2013, until June 30, 2015.
On July 1, 2015 he was appointed chairman and CEO of Universcience, the first French public institution for the communication of scientific and technical culture, comprising the Cité des sciences et de l’industrie and the Palais de la découverte, both located in Paris. His mandate was renewed on December 2, 2020 for a period of five years.
Since 2021, Bruno Maquart is the president of ECSITE, the first European network of science centres and museums. He is also and member of the AMCSTI’s board, the French Association of science centres and museums for the spreading of scientific knowledge.
Bruno Maquart serves in several museal bodies: board member of the musée des Confluences in Lyon (France), the strategic advisory board of the Réunion des musées nationaux – Grand Palais, the board of trustees of the Deutsches Museum in Münich and the scientific council of the Cité de l’Economie (Citéco) in France. He is co-chair of the French Club for sustainability of public companies and institutions (CDDEP). He is also a board member of the National Research Agency (ANR) and and of the French National Center for Scientific Resarch (CNRS).
Rebecca Daniel is a marine biologist, science communicator, and Director of non-profit organisation The Marine Diaries. Fascinated with nature from a young age, she leant to scuba dive at just 10 years old. She’s turned her passion into a career, and now works to bring the ocean to the public, spreading awareness about why we need to protect our blue planet. The Marine Diaries uses storytelling and digital media to communicate ocean science – bridging the gap between the scientific community and the public. Rebecca leads a team of volunteers and has launched various educational projects and campaigns through The Marine Diaries.
Founder and CEO, The Ocean Agency
Richard Vevers is the Founder and CEO of The Ocean Agency, an ocean conservation non-profit accelerating ocean science and conservation through the power of creativity and collaboration. He is a fellow of The Explorers Club and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Rhode Island. He is best known for his leading role in the Emmy Award-winning documentary Chasing Coral on Netflix and his work has been featured in numerous publications and documentaries.
Before diving into ocean and coral reef conservation, Vevers first worked at some of the top London advertising agencies and then as an artist and underwater photographer. It is this background that has guided his unique creative and business-thinking approach to ocean conservation. His imagery, revealing what is happening to our oceans, is some of the most viewed underwater imagery of all time, and his ideas, projects and public speaking have made him a leading voice in the fight to save coral reefs.
His major successes include: 1) inventing the camera that took Google Street View underwater, 2) pioneering virtual reality ocean education, currently available to over 90 million kids, 3) leading the most comprehensive underwater photographic survey of the world’s coral reefs with over 1 million images captured and analyzed (XL Catlin Seaview Survey), 4) revealing the crisis facing coral reefs due to climate change in the Netflix Original Documentary, Chasing Coral, 5) Developing a science-based global plan for targeting coral reef conservation efforts called 50 Reefs.
Jacques Rougerie is a world-renowned French visionary architect, academician, specializing in the field of marine habitats and littoral zones. Passionate about the sea and space, he has based his work and innovations on biomimetic, bioinspired resilient and sustainable architecture.
His iconic “SeaOrbiter” project, like the ISS in space, is an international ocean station dedicated to scientific research, exploration, climate study and education. For more than 30 years, he has been developing floating village projects as well as a base and a lunar village. He has created several underwater habitats, Galathée, Hippocampe, Aquabulle …
With the Lab Rougerie + Tangram, he creates sea museums, sports and aquatic centers and major airport and tertiary facilities … In 2009, he founded the Jacques Rougerie Foundation hosted by the Institut de France. Through its annual “International Architecture Competition” dedicated to the future of the littoral, submarine and space habitats, the Foundation supports visionary architectural projects of young architects, engineers and designers, and assisting them in turning their projects into achievements.
He lectures worldwide on the future of architecture.
Tuesday 1 November
Bruno DAVID is executive President of the National natural history museum in France (Muséum national d’histoire naturelle) since September 2015.
Formerly he was CNRS director of research, founder and former director of the laboratory Biogéosciences (Dijon), which promotes researches at the interface between life and earth sciences. Originally trained as a palaeontologist, he became a biologist, his works focusing on evolution of living as well as fossil forms. He participated to several oceanographic cruises in Antarctica and around the world, and dove with the submersible “Nautile”.
He has published more than 150 peer-reviewed papers, and authored several books, the latest one entitled “À l’aube de la sixième extinction”, Grasset (At the dawn of the 6th extinction). For one year, he produces a short radio program on life and culture (“Le monde vivant”, France Culture).
Photo: ©MNHN – Agnès Iatzoura
Pierre BAHUREL is the Director General of Mercator Ocean International, a non-profit organisation delivering an operational ocean monitoring and forecasting service worldwide. Pierre has worked on space altimetry, modelling and data assimilation applied to operational oceanography and was among the founders of Mercator Ocean in 1995, which he has been leading and developing since then, fostering digital oceanography general-interest services and multi-national governance to create a unique centre in Europe.
Pierre has federated a large community of European public and private partners, all active members of digital oceanography and ocean prediction, to deliver for the EU the Copernicus marine service which is recognized by thousands of users worldwide and provide them with a unique numerical description of the ocean environment on an open & free basis.
He is deeply involved in the international structuration of operational oceanography towards a sustainable ocean, supporting a green and digital transition of the society where ocean knowledge is made accessible to every citizen. He is committed to contributing to the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. Under his leadership, Mercator Ocean International has begun its transformation into an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to digital oceanography and ocean forecasting, to better support regional and global organisations in their scientific and policy development for the sustainability of the ocean.
Wednesday 2 November
With a background in law and marketing, Laurence Paoli joined the National Museum of Natural History in 1990. She created there the communication department, which she directed for 11 years.
In 2001, she left the Museum to launch Urban Nomad. This specialized communication consulting agency in science and environment collaborates with many zoological institutions, foundations, research units, publishing houses, ….
In 2019, Laurence Paoli wrote an essay “Zoos, a new pact with nature”, published by Buchet-Chastel. She then devoted her work by assessing the links between humans/pets and animal mediation. She published in January 2022 with same publisher a new essay “At a time when animals do us good”. She is currently writing a new book that will tackle the underwater wildlife, and also continues working as a communications consultant.
Photo: Eric Le Dain
Lizzy is a surfer and artist living in Peniche, west of Portugal. From the intimate connection with the ocean, the need to protect it has born.
Lizzy started to get interested in environmental activism, acting individually as a volunteer for Surfrider Foundation (since 2011). Beyond beach cleaning, Lizzy has been promoting workshops and volunteer activities of environmental education, to explore the potentialities of marine litter as raw material.
Professionally, Lizzy works as a fulltime illustrator, using illustrations dedicated to surf to convey ecological messages that speak about preserving water sources, nature, the sea and planet Earth.
However, in 2021 Lizzy felt the urge to work with her hands and to have a direct contact with the raw materials and textures, so she proposed herself a challenge: to create pieces out of trash and reused materials, helping to solve the problem of marine litter in a creative way, adding aesthetics and artistic value.
(R)HOPE is a coral reef created with ropes and wasted fishing cages collected on the beach. The main idea was to create a healthy reef vibrant with colors and life, starting from the root causes of its destruction – massive fishing practices.
Coral reefs take up more carbon dioxide than Earth’s forests, so it’s urgent to protect and replant coral reefs to balance Earth’s temperature and biosphere.
(R)HOPE is the hope for a more sustainable fishing practise in the future. A hope for protected sea waters and an invitation to transform trash into aesthetic pieces.
Thursday 3 November
Ricardo Serrão Santos is an academician and a politician.
Doctor in Animal Biology and Ecology is a Principal Scientist and Professor at the University of the Azores, where he has been Pro-Rector for Ocean Affairs [2003-2014] and Director of the Department of Oceanography and Fisheries [1997-2011]. He has been President of the IMAR-Institute of Marine Research [2006-2014].
He was a Member of the European Parliament [2014-2019] and Minister of the Sea in the XXII Government of Portugal [2019-2022].
As a scientist, he is dedicated to studying marine biodiversity and ocean ecosystems. He has more than four hundred published papers and books, including 250 indexed scientific articles and book chapters.
He is Vice-President of the Scientific Council of the Institut Océanographique de Paris. Was President of EurOcean [2012-2015] and Vice-President of the European Marine Board [2012-2015], among several other positions.
He was awarded several prizes and recognitions. The first was a “Gift to the Earth” awarded in 2002 by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and the last was “Officier de la Ordre de Saint Charles” awarded by SAS Le Prince Albert II of Monaco in 2021.
He is an Emeritus Member of the Portuguese Navy Academy and a Full Member of the Portuguese Academy of Sciences.
A professional sailor with two participations in the America’s Cup for French challenges in 2000 and 2003 in Auckland, New Zealand, Romain Troublé has been the General Manager of the Tara Ocean Foundation since 2007. He is also President of the Ocean & Climate platform.
With a Master’s degree in molecular biology and a Master’s degree from HEC-Telecom Paris, Romain Troublé adds to this training an experience as a professional sailor which has taken him to the highest level.
Initially in charge of the operational management of Tara’s expeditions, Romain Troublé became the General Manager of the Tara Ocean Foundation.