VOLVO OCEAN RACE SEMINAR The Importance of a Healthy Ocean for the Economy and People’s Wellbeing

Volvo Pavilion, Volvo Ocean Race Village, 9 October 2014

Sam Dupont is a researcher in marine ecophysiology at the University of

Gothenburg and an Honorary Assistant Professor at the School of Biological

Sciences, Hong Kong University. His main research topic is on the impact of

increased CO2 and related changes on marine species and ecosystems. His

work aims at revealing the mechanisms behind species and ecosystem

responses and at developing the needed unifying theory for large -scale

predictions. His team is also investigating the potential of marine invertebrates

for regenerative medicine and tissue engineering. He has published more than

90 scienti�c articles in journals including Nature, PNAS, and TREE. He is a

member of the Advisory Board of the Ocean Acidi�cation International

Coordination Centre (OA-ICC), the Executive Council of the Global Ocean

Acidi�cation Observing Network (GOA-ON), and the Steering committee of the

EuroMarine consorium.

PANEL SPEAKERS LIST

Dr. Betariz Reguera is Research Professor at the Harmful Microalgae Group of

the in Vigo. She has over 25 year experience in IEO Oceanographic Centre

phytoplankton ecology with a focus on Harmful Algal Blooms (HAB) population

dynamics, physiology and monitoring. In the last decade she has focused her

research on plankton species (Dinophysis spp.) that cause Diarrhetic Shell�sh

Poisoning events, the main cause of lengthy shell�sh harvesting closures in

Atlantic coastal waters in Europe. She has published over 100 articles on this

issue in national and SCI international journals, worked as principal investigator

in national and European Union-funded projects and supervises master and

PhD students. She was a key person in the establishment of the IOC-IEO

Science and Communication Centre in Vigo in 1996, which for more than 14

years, supports training and communication activities of the HAB programme.

She has worked as consultant for United Nations agencies in Latin America and

Northern Africa, and in training courses sponsored by these agencies. In 2011

she received an IOC 50th Anniversary Medal in recognition for his outstanding

contribution to the UNESCO HAB programme.

VOLVO OCEAN RACE SEMINAR The Importance of a Healthy Ocean for the Economy and People’s Wellbeing

Volvo Pavilion, Volvo Ocean Race Village, 9 October 2014

PANEL SPEAKERS LISTIgnacio Torres Ruiz-Huerta Biodiversity is currently Deputy Director of the

Foundation, Public Foundation of the Government of Spain, the Ministry of

Agriculture, Food and Environment. He has a Degree in Biological Sciences

from the Complutense University of Madrid, with 18 years of experience in

managing national and European projects on environment and biodiversity

conservation. He has worked in consulting, engineering, and for the

European Commission. He has directed for the past 6 years LIFE+

INDEMARES, arguably the most ambitious conservation of marine

resources project that has been implemented in Spain. The main objective

of the project is to contribute to the protection and LIFE+ INDEMARES

sustainable use of the biodiversity in the Spanish seas through the

identi�cation of valuable areas for the Natura 2000 Network. The project

started in 2009 and it’s in the �nal phase right now.

Dr. Sebastián Villasante is Professor of Economics at USC and Natural

Capital Fellow at Stanford University (USA). His research focuses on

assessing the economic and social contribution of the oceans at multiple

scales. He has published 115 papers in scienti�c journals. He was awarded 4

National and International Prizes (American Fisheries Society, 2008;

INESMA, 2009; Japanese International Research Society “Yamamoto”, 2010;

and USC, 2011). Since early 2014, he has been the Co-chair of the ICES

Working Group on Resilience and Marine Ecosystem Services and the

Coordinator of the ESP on the Economic Valuation of Ecosystem Services

Working Group. He was visiting scientist at the University of Tromsø,

Stanford University, Poverty Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

(MIT-USA), School of Aquatic and Fisheries Sciences of the University of

Washington, Stockholm Resilience Centre, The Beijer Institute of Ecological

Economics, Sweden, and the University of British Columbia. You can visit his

website .here