Scientific Steering Committee

The Scientific Steering Committee (SSC) was an international group of scientists that formed the governing body of the Census of Marine Life. This group provided conceptual guidance, determined the scientific goals, and oversaw the progress and direction of the program.

Current Committee Members

Ian Poiner, Chair (Australia) is the Director and CEO of the Australian Institute for Marine Science (AIMS). Prior to taking this position in July 2004, Dr. Poiner served as Deputy Chief of the Division of Marine Research at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) Marine Laboratories, the largest marine research organization in Australia. Dr. Poiner specializes in tropical marine ecology and fisheries, but his key research interests lie in tropical seagrass ecology, environmental and climatic impacts of fishing, and environmental standards in international fishery certification. Dr. Poiner has one published book and over 95 published papers and reports. Dr. Poiner is a prominent member of many advisory committees and scientific societies, such as the Australian Society for Fish Biology, the Australian Coral Reef Society, and is a founding member of the Asian Fisheries Society.

Victor Ariel Gallardo, Vice Chair (Chile) is a Professor at the Department of Oceanography at the Universidad de Concepcion in Chile. Dr. Gallardo was the first Program Director (now Sub Director) for Centro de Investigación Oceanográfica en el Pacifico Sur-Oriental, COPAS (Center for Oceanographic Research in the Eastern South Pacific). Dr. Gallardo assists in the development and administration of the partnership of the Universidad de Concepcion and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, a partnership that seeks to improve and enforce Oceanography in higher education in Chile. In addition to his interest in education, Dr. Gallardo researches sublittoral benthos and bacteria. Dr. Gallardo has published many papers within the past 10 years, both in English and Spanish.

Myriam Sibuet, Vice Chair (France) is the Senior scientist emerita in residence at the Institut Océanographique de Paris, Fondation Albert 1er de Monaco. She is the former Director of Ifremer’s “Deep Sea Environment” Department, a position from which she retired in 2006. Since 2005, she has also served as the Science and Technology adviser to the President of Ifremer. Her scientific interests include biodiversity and functioning of deep-sea ecosystems, ecology of sediment and cold seep communities, deep sea echinoderm biology, ecology and taxonomy. She has more than 30 years of experience in international oceanographic research, serving as the leader of the Ifremer BIOZAIRE program in partnership with oil Industry (TOTAL), co-project leader of cold water coral mounds in North East Atlantic, CARACOLE project, and partner of both the European project MEDIFLUX (Eurocore-Euromargin) and HERMES European integrated project. Myriam is also a leader in the development of the new CoML project Continental Margin Ecosystems on a Worldwide Scale (CoMargE).

J. Frederick Grassle, Past Chair (USA) is a professor and the former director of the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences (IMCS) at Rutgers University. Dr. Grassle also serves as director of the Fisheries Information and Development Center and New Jersey Chair of the NY and NJ Clean Ocean and Shore Trust (COAST). His research interests include benthic ecology, ocean observing systems, ocean biogeography and geographical information systems, and the fate and effects of contaminants in the marine environment. Dr. Grassle has conducted an abundance of research in coastal, continental shelf, coral reef, and deep-sea communities worldwide. Dr. Grassle’s research has been well published over the past 25 years. He is one of the founders of the Census of Marine Life program and served as the Chair of the international Scientific Steering Committee from 2000-2008. (full bio)

Vera Alexander (USA) has recently stepped down from the position of Dean of the School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), and now serves as Assistant to the Provost for Fisheries and Oceans Policy. She also serves as Director of the MMS/UAF Coastal Marine Institute and the UAF Pollock Conservation Cooperative Research Center, supported by the Pollock Conservation Cooperative. She is also a professor of Marine Science at UAF. Her research in Arctic limnology and biological oceanography has included fieldwork in the Arctic, Antarctic, northern Canada (Ellesmere Island and Devon Island) and Finnish Lapland. She has been visiting Professor at the National Institute of Polar Research, Tokyo, and at the University of Turku, Finland. She holds many leadership positions in the ocean and Arctic science community, such as a US Marine Mammal Commissioner, Chairman of the North Pacific Marine Science Organization (PICES) and President of the Arctic Research Consortium of the United States (ARCUS). Dr. Alexander has authored or coauthored over 70 papers published in the refereed literature. Honors include election as Fellow of the AAAS, of the Arctic Institute of North America, and also the Explorers Club. She received an honorary Doctorate of Laws degree from Hokkaido University in recognition of her work in promoting international scientific cooperation. (full bio)

D. James Baker (USA) is the Director of the Global Carbon Measurement Program at the William J. Clinton Foundation. He is a consultant to the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS). He has formerly served as President and CEO of The Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. Dr. Baker was appointed to the position of Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans & Atmosphere by President Clinton, a position he held from 1993-2001 and through which he initiated a U.S. GOOS Steering Committee. He holds the record as the longest serving Administrator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Dr. Baker’s ocean science management career is long-standing and includes terms as President of Joint Oceanographic Institutions and as Dean of the University of Washington’s College of Ocean and Fishery Sciences. Dr. Baker regularly gives Congressional testimony, speaks as a keynote lecturer, and interviews to print media, television, and radio networks.

Patricio Bernal (France/Chile) was Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) from 1998-2009. Dr. Bernal has studied at the University of Chile and Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Dr. Bernal was a long-time Associate Professor and Director in the departments of Biology, Sea Technology, and Oceanography at Pontifica Universidad Catolica de Chile before accepting the post as the Executive Director of the Fisheries Development Institution of Chile. He also became the Under-Secretary of State for Fisheries in the Ministry of Economics, Development and Reconstruction until 1994. Prior to his arrival at UNESCO, Dr. Bernal was the Dean of Faculty of Fisheries and Oceanography of the Universidad Austral de Chile. Dr. Bernal is a member of several scientific and academic associations and societies as well as being an author of various publications.

D. Chandramohan (India) retired as the Head of the Biological Oceanography Division of the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) in Goa in December 2004. He had held this position since 1996. Dr. Chandramohan joined NIO in 1980 after professorships at Annamalai University and Cochin University of Science & Technology in India. His scientific area of expertise is marine microbiology. Dr. Chandramohan has served as the President of the Goa chapter of the Association of Microbiologists of India and is a founding member of the Asia-Pacific Society of Marine Biotechnology.

David Farmer (USA/Canada), an oceanographer from the Institute of Ocean Sciences in Sidney, British Columbia, Canada, is now the Dean of the Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island. Dr. Farmer is a well-published scientist whose research interests include air-sea interaction and physical oceanography of the upper ocean boundary layer; acoustical oceanography; oceanography of straits and coastal waters; air-sea gas exchange; and sea-ice mechanics. Internationally, Dr. Farmer has been a Visiting Professor, Chief Scientist, and Chairman to various academic institutions such as Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and SCOR. Dr. Farmer’s honors consist of the Rosenstiel Award for Marine Science, The Oceanography Society’s Walter Munk Award, and The Canadian Oceanographic and Meteorological Society’s President’s Prize.

Serge Garcia (Italy) retired in March 2007 from his position as the Director of the Fishery Resources Division at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome. Dr. Garcia’s research expertise includes tropical resources evaluation and management, precautionary approach to fisheries, sustainability indicators in fisheries, and penaeid shrimp biology, dynamics, and management. He is now a consultant.

Carlo Heip (Netherlands/Belgium) is the General Director of the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ) and the Director of the Centre for Estuarine and Marine Ecology of the NIOO-KNAW Netherlands Institute of Ecology. His scientific expertise is in benthic ecology and marine biodiversity. Previously, Dr. Heip has been an Extra-ordinary Professor in Estuarine Ecology at the State University of Groningen. He has taught Biological Oceanography and Marine Biology at the State University of Gent (Belgium) and the International Institute for Hydraulic and Environmental Engineering, Delft (Netherlands), respectively. Dr. Heip is the principal scientist for over 20 major four-year projects in basic research and over 20 applied research projects including those from the Ministry of Scientific Policy and the Ministry of Public Health in Belgium, and from The Ministry of Water Management and Public Transport and the Netherlands Organisation of Scientific Research NWO, in the Netherlands. (full bio)

Poul Holm (Ireland/Denmark) is a Professor of Environmental History at Trinity College Dublin and the Academic Director of the Trinity Long Room Hub. He was formerly the Rector of Roskilde University in Denmark. He is actively involved in researching and documenting the history and archaeology of the world’s oceans and seas. His research interests reside mainly in the fields of marine environmental and maritime social and economic history from medieval to modern times. He has been a museum curator (Fiskeri-og Sofartsumusset, Esbjerg) and museum coordinator, (Danish Museums Network for Fisheries History) and an editor of the International Journal of Maritime History, Studia Atlantica, and the Oxford Encyclopedia of Maritime History. Dr. Holm received his education at the University of Aalborg where he also became an Assistant Professor. Prior to joining Roskilde University, Dr. Holm was a Professor at Southern Denmark University. During 2002-2003, Dr. Holm was the Chairman of the European Network of Research Councils for the Humanities (ERCH) and has been funded for research over the past 10 years from various sources including the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, NorFA, and Esbjerg Fishkeindustri.

Yoshihisa Shirayama (Japan) is the Director of the Field Science Education and Research Center at Kyoto University in Japan. Prior to this position, he served as Director and Professor of Kyoto University’s Seto Marine Biological Laboratory. Formerly, Dr. Shirayama was an Assistant and Associate Professor at the Ocean Research Institute at The University of Tokyo. Dr. Shirayama is involved in numerous scientific societies such as the Japanese Society for Systematic Zoology, the Japanese Association of Benthology, The Society of Nematologists, and the Oceanographic Society of Japan, among others. Since 1992, he has been a member of the Coastal Ocean Environment Assessment Committee to Japan’s Ministry of Environment. He is also a member of JAMSTEC (Deep-sea Research Planning Committee) and UNESCO, C-GOOS Steering Committee. Dr. Shirayama has published over 80 papers, reviews, and other articles in both English and Japanese. (full bio)

Michael Sinclair (Canada) did his graduate studies in biological oceanography at Southampton University and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. From 1972 until 1978 he was a professor in the oceanography section at the University of Quebec, in Rimouski. Research during this period was on phytoplankton ecology in estuaries. He joined the Bedford Institute of Oceanography (BIO) in 1978, initially working on herring population biology and fisheries advice. This was followed by research on invertebrate fisheries, and administration, at the Halifax Fisheries Research Laboratory (1982 to 1987). Since 1988 he has held administrative positions at Bedford Institute of Oceanography, being the Director since 2002. Research interests have been on fish population ecology, fisheries management studies and the history of fisheries research.

Sun Song (China) is the Director of the Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences in Qingdao. His research interests include zooplankton and image analysis. Dr. Sun is also the Chair of the Chinese National Implementation Committee for CoML and is involved in CMarZ, OBIS and the SCOR Technology Panel.

Meryl J. Williams (Australia/Malaysia) ended her term as Director General of the WorldFish Center in Malaysia in March 2004 and now serves as the Executive Officer of CGIAR’s Future Harvest Alliance Office. Her primary concerns with WordFish were fisheries, aquaculture, and aquatic resources that are relevant to the needs of the poor in the developing world. Before her arrival at WorldFish, Dr. Williams was the Director of the Australian Institute of Marine Science and the Executive Director of the former Bureau of Rural Resources in the Department of Primary Industries and Energy in Canberra, Australia. She has researched fisheries at the South Pacific Commission and in the Queensland government. In addition to being a member of the first Board of the Australian Fisheries Management Authority and the Council of the Australian Maritime College, Dr. Williams was elected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering. In 1997 she became a member of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations’ Advisory Committee on Fisheries Research. Dr. Williams has published extensively in the scientific and development literature on tropical fisheries and aquaculture.

Ex-Officio Members

Jesse Ausubel, Rockefeller University & Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, USA

Daniel Costa, University of California Santa Cruz, USA

Patrick Halpin, Duke University, USA

Sara Hickox, University of Rhode Island, USA

Enric Sala, National Geographic Pristine Seas Project, USA/Spain

Paul Snelgrove, Memorial University Newfoundland, Canada

Edward Vanden Berghe, Rutgers University, USA

Past Committee Members

Donald Boesch, University of Maryland, USA
Olav Rune Godø, Institute of Marine Research, Norway
Andrew Solow, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, USA