Dr. Catarina Frazão Santos is an invited Assistant Professor at the Department of Animal Biology, Ciências ULisboa, University of Lisbon, integrated researcher at the Marine and Environmental Sciences Center (MARE-ULisboa), and Honorary Research Associate at the at the School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford. She is also founding Editor-in-Chief of the Nature npj Ocean Sustainability journal (www.nature.com/npjoceansustain). Dr. Frazão Santos’s primary research focuses on the multiple dimensions of ocean sustainability, particularly sustainable ocean planning and governance under global environmental and social change. She is deeply involved in international collaborations and networks, and works as an invited expert supporting the European Commission, the World Bank, and the United Nations, among others. Dr. Frazão Santos received a PhD in Marine Sciences from the University of Lisbon (co-directed by Duke University) and has a background in marine biology and environmental management. She recently received a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant to develop project PLAnT “Planning for sustainable ocean use in Antarctica under global environmental change” (2024-2029).
Dr. Tundi Agardy is an internationally renowned expert in marine conservation, with extensive field and policy experience across the globe. She specializes in ecosystem services assessment, coastal planning, marine protected areas, fisheries management, and ocean zoning, and has published widely in these fields, including several books: “Marine Protected Areas and Ocean Conservation”, “Ocean Zoning: Making Marine Management More Effective”, and “The Routledge Handbook on Ocean Management”, which she co-edited. Tundi is Executive Director of Sound Seas, which she founded in 2001, is the Caribbean Environmental Lead for Baird & Associates, and curates the World Ocean Forum (W2O). Tundi launched the MARES Program at Forest Trends, and previously served as Senior Scientist for WWF and launched Conservation International’s Global Marine Program. She is currently a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Worcester College, University of Oxford.
Dr. Elena Gissi, Senior Researcher at the National Research Council, Institute of Marine Sciences, Italy. She won a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship with the project MEDIX “Marine Environmental DynamIcs and seX-based analysis for climate change adaptation in marine spatial planning”, for which she was a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University (2020-2023). Her research focuses on understanding the responses to climate change of marine life at multiple levels of biological diversity, to incorporate this knowledge in marine spatial planning (MSP) for adaptation and mitigation. She has over a decade of research experience in producing and integrating ecological insights in decision making processes. She has applied her findings in MSP in the Mediterranean Sea, and also in environmental and energy planning. She designed and contributed to the first tests of implementing MSP in the Mediterranean Sea, and she keeps supporting the implementation of the MSP Directive 2014/89/EC in collaboration with the National competent authorities in the Mediterranean. Dr. Gissi co-chaired the working group on Area-based Management of the COST Action on “Ocean governance for sustainability” (2018-2021). She is appointed expert in the Italian MSP planning team. Dr. Gissi has published 50 peer-reviewed articles in the field of ecosystem-based management and MSP, conservation planning and applied ecology.