Virdin Brown

Chairman - Board of Directors

Virdin C. Brown has served as an official of the Government of the United States Virgin Islands for more than thirty-one years - serving in various positions. He was elected as a Senator in the Legislature of the Virgin Islands for seven terms. He served on several committees and held several leadership positions including Legislative Secretary and ultimately as President of the Senate. He gave special attention to legislation affecting the environment and the management of natural resources. He has served in the cabinets of three Governors of the Virgin Islands - first as the Commissioner of the Department of the Department of Conservation and Cultural Affairs (DCCA) and later as Assistant Commissioner of the Department of Planning and Natural Resources (successor agency to DCCA). In those positions he was the designated official to serve on the Caribbean Fishery Management Council (CFMC) as established by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. He was elected as the first Chairman of CFMC in 1976. In 1999 Brown retired from service in the U. S. Virgin Islands Government and in 2000 he was appointed by the U. S. Secretary of Commerce to serve on the Caribbean Fishery Management Council as a private citizen. He served three consecutive 3-year terms (the maximum he was a allowed by law). His term ended in August, 2009. He was subsequently appointed to be a member of the CFMC Advisory Panel. Brown is a member of the National Parks and Conservation Association and served six years on its Board of Trustees. He was a member of the Board of Directors of the Caribbean Conservation Association, and Workable, Inc. He is, or was, a member of other community service organizations and has served as a teacher and administrator in the USVI Department of Education. Brown hosted/coordinated two GCFI annual meetings in the U, S.. Virgin Islands (one in St. Thomas and one in St. Croix).

Brian Luckhurst, PhD

Vice-Chairman - Board of Directors

Brian has been the Senior Fisheries Officer, Ministry of the Environment, Bermuda since 1981. He is actively involved in a number of research projects including studies of the reproduction and age and growth of groupers and snappers. He has focused on the dynamics of reef fish spawning aggregations including conservation and management issues in Bermuda, Belize and the wider Caribbean. He has also been monitoring the recovery of Bermuda’s coral reef fish stocks by diver census since the fish pot ban in 1990. Other studies involve the fishery biology of pelagic species such as wahoo and tunas. He has been a partner in an international program to deploy satellite pop-up tags on blue marlin in the western Atlantic for the past five years. He has also conducted studies on spiny lobster biology and deep water fish biology. Other recent studies include collaboration on the genetic characterization of regionally important fish stocks using DNA techniques. He is the author of a number of scientific papers and is one of three co-authors of a book published in 1999, "Fishes of Bermuda". He is the past-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute and was an Associate Editor for its Proceedings for a number of years. He is a long standing member of the International Society of Reef Studies. He has acted as a fisheries and marine resources consultant to The Nature Conservancy, CFRAMP, the Caribbean Fisheries Management Council and the Department of Environment in the Cayman Islands.

Brian is a keen cyclist who rides every day whenever possible. He also enjoys designing and building – he just recently finished renovations to his house. Over the years he has developed a strong interest in wine and has established his own modest cellar in his home.

LeRoy Creswell

Executive Secretary

R. LeRoy Creswell is a Sea Grant Marine Extension Agent for the University of Florida in Fort Pierce, Florida. His extension responsibilities include education and outreach programs in fields related to marine resource utilization, including tourism, commercial and recreational fishing, aquaculture, coastal zone management.As a Florida Sea Grant agent Mr. Creswell assisted in the establishment of the St. Lucie County Marine Center, a collaborative project with the Smithsonian Institution and several public and private educational organization.

For over 17 years, Mr. Creswell was an associate research scientist at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution, Inc. His research focused on the development of aquaculture technologies for tropical marine invertebrates, including bivalve and gastropod molluscs, and several species of crustaceans, such as the Caribbean spiny lobster. He also conducted studies on the larviculture and nutrition of ornamental marine fish and invertebrates. He holds two patents, a trademarked line of ornamental fish feeds, and has authored a book in the field of aquaculture.

Mr. Creswell served on the Board of Directors and was two-term president of the Caribbean Aquaculture Association, and editor of The Caribbean Aquaculturist for ten years. He was a Director of the World Aquaculture Society for 12 years and its president in 1994. Most recently, he served as the Program Chairman for AQUA2000, a joint meeting of the World Aquaculture Society and the European Aquaculture Society, in Nice, France.

Mr. Creswell has been on the Board of Directors of the Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute for over 15 years. In addition to serving as the Executive Secretary of GCFI, he is also the Senior Editor of the GCFI Proceedings.

Mel Goodwin, PhD

Treasurer

Formally trained as a marine biologist, Dr. Goodwin is responsible for operations, program development, and implementation of a nonprofit information services organization devoted to sustainable development. Major activities include development of public information programs to communicate information on sustainable development issues and approaches, developing professional training programs in sustainable development for design and building professionals, incorporating sustainability principles into public school buildings and curricula, anddevelopment of neighborhood-based land use plans for the cities of Charleston and North Charleston. He worked for fifteen years as Projects Director on sustainable development initiatives in the Eastern Caribbean sponsored by public and private organizations including the Canadian International Development Agency, Caribbean Conservation Association, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Inter American Foundation, Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, U. S. Agency for International Development, and World Wildlife Fund – U.S. Recent activities include authoring more than 100 outreach lesson plans for middle school and high school classes dealing with NOAA’s Ocean Exploration Program, National Ocean Service, and the Aquarius Project

Bob Glazer

Executive Director

Bob is the Principal Investigator for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commissions' Fish and Wildlife Research Institute's queen conch research and restoration program in Marathon.  His research interests are in stock restoration, essential habitat, larval recruitment, endocrine disruption, marine fishery reserves, and stock structure.  He has worked extensively on molluscan aquaculture  for both commercial and restoration projects. In 1994 he received the first Florida Jaycees Outstanding Young Environmentalist award and in 2006 he was the first marine recipient of the Southeast Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies Fishery Biologist of the Year.

Directors

Alejandro Acosta, PhD

Alejandro works for the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's Fish and Wildlife Research Institute in Marathon. His interests include fish biology and community ecology, especially the relationships between habitat structure and the distribution and abundance of fishes. His work has examined tropical reef fisheries,community structure, and stock assessment of reef, mangrove and estuarine fishes. He is actively involved in an annual multi-species visual censuses and trawl surveys covering the ocean and bay waters of the Florida Keys. Previously he was in charge of developing a continuing fishery survey collection program for juvenile fish populations in Florida Bay.Alejendro is a previous Chairman of GCFI.

Dalila Aldana Aranda, PhD

Dalila Aldana Aranda is Profesor at CINVESTAV-IPN (Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional), a Research Center in Mexico. My research is mainly in nutrition, reproduction and aquaculture of marine Molluscs. I have been working extensively in conch of the genus Strombus (S. gigas, S. costatus, S. pugilis), also in an endemic conch from Yucatan Peninsula, and oyster Crassotrea virginica. I received my Ph.D. in Biology Oceanography and Aquaculture from University of West Bretagne, Brest, France, with Honorific Mention. In 1993, I received a second Ph. D. in populations Biology, at University de Marsella, France, receiving also an honorific mention. I have written over 70 scientific papers in my field, and I have produced 6 books of environmental education related to protect marine species. I have supervised 4 Ph. D., and 10 Master students. From 1997 to 2001, I coordinated the Iberoamerican Network of mollucs aquaculture from Iberoamerican Program of Science and Technology for Development (CYTED).  In 2002, I was chair-woman of the Marine Laboratories Association in the Caribbean. In 2006, the Institute of Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries nominated me as their chair person, becoming the first woman in this Institute that received this nomination.  Since June 2008, I am chair-woman of the Mexican Academy of Science (Southeast).

Nancy Brown-Peterson

Nancy Brown-Peterson is a Research Associate in the Department of Coastal Sciences at the University of Southern Mississippi’s Gulf Coast Research Laboratory.  Her primary research interest centers around the reproductive biology of fishes, and involves investigations of spawning seasons, fecundity and spawning frequency of important recreational species in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean such as spotted seatrout, cobia, tripletail, wahoo, blue marlin and sheepshead. Nancy has been instrumental in organizing several Gonadal Histology Workshops, and is a driving force behind ongoing efforts to standardize reproductive terminology. Recently, Nancy has been involved with projects investigating the effects of hypoxia on gene expression in crustaceans. She has over 45 publications from more than 25 years of research along the Gulf of Mexico. A list of selected publications can be found at here.

Nancy was a co-organizer of the 53^rd GCFI conference in Biloxi, MS and co-chair of the Large Pelagic Fishes Symposium held at the 59^th GCFI.  She has been an active member of the GCFI Student Awards Committee since 2001 and has served as Chair of the committee since 2005.

Georgina Bustamante, PhD

Dr. Georgina Bustamante is the coordinator of the Caribbean MPA Management Network and Forum, and an independent consultant for local and international conservation organizations (IUCN, UNEP-Caribbean Environment Programme, UNESCO, NOAA, and others). She graduated as a marine biologist from the University of Havana, Cuba in 1973, and received her doctorate degree (Ph.D.) in Biology in 1987 from the Cuban Academy of Sciences with a thesis on coastal fish ecology. She worked for 20 years (1974-1994) in Cuba as a marine scientist and deputy director in the Institute of Oceanology of Cuba, and as a consultant for coastal development, fisheries management and national research programs in Cuba and the Caribbean. In 1994, she moved to the United States and since 1995 worked as a marine conservation scientist and program coordinator for The Nature Conservancy's Latin American and Caribbean Programs. She also held a Adjunct Associate Professorship at the University of Miami, Biology Dept. while working at TNC's Florida and Caribbean Marine Conservation Science Center

During the last 35 years (she is not that old) she has participated in numerous marine science and conservation projects in Cuba, Mexico, Belize, Dominican Republic and the Bahamas related to coastal tropical ecology, fisheries management, marine fish culture, coastal planning and biodiversity conservation. She participated as an instructor in all UNEP-Caribbean Environment Programme Train the Trainers course for Caribbean marine protected area managers, and directed the editions of 2000 (Dominican Republic), 2004 and 2006 (Florida, U.S.). 2007 (Tulum, Mexico) and 2009 (Trinidad and Tobago).

Dr. Bustamante has been involved in several international conservation projects and initiatives, i.e. Setting Geographic priorities for Marine Conservation in Latinamerica and Caribbean, the Ecoregional Conservation Assessment of the Bahamian Archipelago and the Caribbean, the selection of potential new World Heritage Marine and Island Sites, the formulation of a Marine Reserves Regional Enhancement Plan for IUCN'WCPA Marine, the development of guidleines for listing MPAs under the -Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife Protocol, etc. She has coordinated or participated in the 6th editions of the UNEP-CEP Training the Trainers Course for MPA Managers of the Caribbean, and the updating of CaMPAM MPA database.

Georgina has published over 30 scientific papers. She is co-author of several books: "Ecologia de los Peces Marinos de Cuba" (1994), "Ecology of the Marine Fishes of Cuba" (2002), "Environmental Assessment of the Guantanamo Naval Base, Cuba" (1997), and "Setting geographic priorities for marine conservation in Latin America and the Caribbean" (1999), etc.

Eric Castro

Erick Castro is a Marine Biologist with the Jorge Tadeo Lozano University with a Specialist in Ecology, Environment and Development from the INCCA University of Colombia and a Magister in Marine Biologist from the Colombian National University. He has over 12 years of experience in the coordination, development and management of marine fisheries projects. He has participated in several studies on stock assessment, resilience fisheries, and implementation of marine protected areas (MPAs). His primary emphasis pertains to the formulation of plans of actions and studies related to the biology, ecology and fisheries of the queen conch, spiny lobster and large pelagic fishes. He is Coordinator of the fisheries team in the Agriculture and Fisheries Department in the Archipelago of San Andres, Providencia and Santa Catalina, Colombia.

Rodolfo Claro PhD

Biology-Zoology, emphasis Ichthyology, 1970: State University of Moscow, M.V.  Lomonosov                                   

Biological Sciences, Ph.D., 1976: Russian Academy of Sciences

Scientific degree:  Investigador Titular (Senior Researcher); Académico Titular, Academia de Ciencias de Cuba.

Employer:
Instituto de Oceanología (Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología y Medio Ambiente)
 
Speciality: Ichthyology (ecology of tropical fishes); conservation of coastal marine ecosystems

Teaching activities:
Courses: Ecology of Tropical Fishes, Fish Ecophysiology and Marine Biodiversity. 
Tutorials of pre-graduate students, Masters and Doctors on marine biology.
Member of National Board for Scientific Degrees, speciality in Biology.

Jim Franks

Jim Franks is a Senior Fisheries Biologist with the University of Southern Mississippi, Center for Fisheries Research and Development, Gulf Coast Research Laboratory in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. He is adjunct faculty with the University’s Department of Coastal Sciences. His primary research interests are age, growth, reproduction, and habitat requirements of coastal and large pelagic fishes in the northern Gulf of Mexico. His current research includes studies on the biology and life history of cobia, tripletail and wahoo. He is currently co-investigator on a study of pelagic Sargassum and oceanic frontal zones as habitat for larval and juvenile pelagic fishes, particularly billfish, tunas, amberjack and dolphinfish, in the Gulf of Mexico. Current research also includes investigations of pelagic species as potential aquaculture candidates. He has conducted studies on barrier island fish ecology, co-authored a plan of response to protect coastal habitats and fishery resources during oil spills, and worked with colleagues and fishers to establish angler-based cooperative tag-and-release programs in the Gulf and South Atlantic regions. He has authored numerous scientific papers and serves on fisheries advisory committees and boards. He is on the board of directors of the Mississippi Wildlife Federation and several sport fishing tournaments, and is a member of the American Fisheries Society, Billfish Foundation, Coastal Conservation Association, and Gulf Coast Game Fish Restoration Coalition.

Will Heyman, PhD

I am presently an Associate Professor of Geography at Texas A&M University. My research and teaching are largely focused in the Gulf and Caribbean Region. I have developed a great appreciation for the wealth of cultural, biological, and physical diversity of the region through working in the waters and coasts of many of the region’s diverse locations, including extensive periods living in the Bahamas, the Turks and Caicos, and Belize. My research is broad and multi-disciplinary but the unifying theme is to better understand the complex physical-biological interactions in the sea that create the resource hotspots on which humans depend. I endeavor to work with local people throughout the region to help recognize these patterns, and help them to use this information to mitigate the pressure that we have on the resources, allowing more productive ecosystems and more sustainable use. The best example of this approach is my work on reef fish spawning aggregations. I study the geomorphology, biology, ocean physics, resource use, and management of reef fish spawning aggregations, towards their effective management, as part of an ecosystem-based management approach for the Gulf and Caribbean. I use a broad and inclusive approach that empowers fishers to assist in science and resource management through appropriate educational opportunities and sustainable economic alternatives to destructive fishing. For further information, please also visit http://marinegeog.tamu.edu.

Anderson Kinch

Profession: Fisherman
Nationality: Barbadian

I have been engaged in fishing for over 40 years. The first seven years I was still at school but going to sea on weekends with my father as a hobby. Little did I know that that was to be my initiation.

As a professional fisher I have been involved in several types of fisheries: flying fishing, deep slope, fish potting (traps), sea egg and long lining. Long lining remains my specialty (over 25 years).

During this time I have been a member of the Fisheries Advisory Committee (FAC) no less than four separate occasions, Oistins Fisherfolk Association, Barbados National Union of Fisherfolk Organisations and Barbados Fishing Cooperative Society.

In 1996 I was presented with a bronze medal from the FAO under the theme ‘fighting hunger and malnutrition’. Being a board member of the Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute and the recipient of the first Peter Gladding Memorial Award has given me the greatest satisfaction in knowing that fishermen have a voice and somehow, somewhere somebody cares.

Jaimie Medina

Graciela Garcia-Moliner

Graciela García-Moliner Basora is “the scientific staff” with the official title of Habitat and Fishery Management Plan Specialist, at the Caribbean Fishery Management Council, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, (NOAA-Fisheries) of the US Department of Commerce.  The Caribbean Fishery Management Council is located in San Juan, Puerto Rico (http://www.caribbeanfmc.com).   BD (before Daniel Matos-Caraballo), she worked at the Fisheries Research Laboratory (then of CODREMAR now, under the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources) with fishery statistics and the development of the biostatistical data collection effort in Puerto Rico.

She enjoys the work at the CFMC, which includes not only actual scientific cruises (at least once per year!) but also serving as liaison with economists (most people think this is what she does!), fishery scientists and officers, commercial and recreational fishers, students, many government agencies, universities and marine institutes, news media people and managers in the development of fishery management plans (FMPs).  There are FMPs for reef fish, spiny lobster, queen conch and corals; each includes biological, environmental, social and economic impact assessments. Fisheries interests include: deep water snappers and fish in general, recreational fisheries and boating, oceanographic features (eddies and fronts) and their impacts on fisheries, fish spawning aggregations and sex changing fish.

She started a PhD in Biological Oceanography at the Graduate School of Oceanography, University of Rhode Island (working with Dr. James Yoder) and revived her PhD interest in remote sensing at the University of Puerto Rico coming to work with Dr. Roy Armstrong.   Her interest in remote sensing include the use of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) to characterize and assess deeper water fish and coral communities and the use of satellite data to assess oceanographic features and changes in chlorophyll-a patterns in the surface waters.

She is a member of various work groups such as the Operations Team of the Marine Recreational Information Program (MRIP; http://www.st.nmfs.noaa.gov/mrip/index.html), SEAMAP-Caribbean (Southeast Area Monitoring and Assessment Program-Reef Resources Work Group; http://www.seamap.org/ ), SEDAR (Southeast Data, Assessment and Review Program; http://www.sefsc.noaa.gov/sedar/Index.jsp), the Integrated Coastal Ocean Observing System for the Caribbean and the Regional Association for the Caribbean (CaRA;http://cara.uprm.edu/federation.html),  Interagency Seabird Working Group, and IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC) Groupers and Wrasses Specialist Group (http://www.hku.hk/ecology/GroupersWrasses/iucnsg/about.htm), among others.

Kenyon Lindeman, PhD

Ken Lindeman is a Research Professor, Dept. of Marine & Environmental Systems, Florida Institute of Technology. Literature products include over 50 journal articles and book chapters. Co-author of the books Biology and Management of Western Atlantic Snappers (published in Spanish as a web product, currently in production with R. Claro and J. Cowan for publication in English by LSU Press); Living with Florida's Atlantic Beaches (Duke University Press); and Ecology of the Marine Fishes of Cuba (Smithsonian Institution Press) winner of the 2002 National Book Prize, Cuban Academy of Sciences.

Management products with dozens of partners include diverse habitat and fishery regulations at state and federal scales, over ten MPAs, and strategic planning and tactical implementation of conservation campaigns with >30 NGOs and agencies in Florida, Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica and Brasil. Current or recent advisory positions: World Bank Targeted Coral Research Connectivity Workgroup,, Habitat Advisory Panels of the Caribbean and South Atlantic Fishery Management Councils, U.S.- Brasil Marine Policy Consortium, and the Society for the Conservation of Reef Fish Aggregations. Formerly employed with NOAA, the University of Miami, and Environmental Defense Fund. Consulting experience includes NGOs, maritime industry, Smithsonian Institution, National Geographic Society, and FAO.

Jeannette Mateo

Jeannette Mateo is the Director of Fisheries Resources at the Dominican Council for Fisheries and Aquaculture (CODOPESCA) in the Dominican Republic and a professor of biology in the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo (UASD). Her experience in education also includes teaching at Technological University of Santiago (biology), Ibero-American University (environmental sciences) and Frederick Dickinson University (course on Marine vertebrates, during a pilot project in DR).

Graduated as biologist from UASD she also obtained a Master’s of Science in Biological Oceanography at the University of Puerto Rico; completed studies on aquaculture (PISIE-Italy and ICDF-Taiwan), and on Caribbean International Relations at the Latin-American Faculty for Social Sciences (FLACSO). She worked as Ichthyologist and fisheries biologist for various projects in Parque Nacional Jaragua and Parque Nacional del Este and conducted aquatic biodiversity surveys and fish identification in the Dominican Republic & Haiti.  As biologist/assistant of the Scientific Director of the CARICOM Fisheries Unit, she coordinated the implementation of the fisheries component of the Integrated Caribbean Regional Agriculture and Fisheries Development Programme (ICRAFDP) in the Dominican Republic as well as the conduct of lobster and conch resource assessment activities in the CARIFORUM countries. Her background also includes supervision of community-based coastal management projects in Guatemala, Panamá and the Dominican Republic. In the last 4 years, Jeannette performed duties as Marine Specialist of The Nature Conservancy in the Dominican Republic and is the former director of protection, control and regulation at the Vice-ministry of Coastal and Marine Resources, Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources in her country.

She has presented the results of her studies on various topics of fisheries management in more than 25 scientific meetings.  In 1997 she was the first recipient of the GFCI award to the best student paper presented and also received in 2005 the award to the best participant in the international training in aquaculture, granted by CFTDI, Taiwan. Currently she is member of the Fish Specialist Group of IUCN, active member of Grupo Jaragua, Inc., and officer in charge of foreign affairs of the Dominican Association of Biologists.  As CITES Scientific Authority for Aquatic Fauna she provides technical advice to CITES Administrative Authorities in topics related to her background.

Mark Peterson, PhD

Mark S. Peterson has been a Professor since 2002 in the Department of Coastal Sciences at The University of Southern Mississippi. Prior to coming to USM he was faculty at Mississippi State University for 6 yrs and a Post-Doctoral fellow at the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution in Florida. He has taught or teaches Coastal Processes II, Ecology of Fishes, Ichthyology, and Topics in Fisheries Ecology and has developed a research program on resource ecology where he and his students study fish-habitat relationships, eco-physiology of living in coastal ecosystems, landscape restoration, invasive species, and life-history of fishes. Mark and his students have published extensively on these topics with almost 70 publications. Mark is an integral member of the USM Coastal Ecology Group (http://www.usm.edu/gcrl/ceg) and is Editor-in-Chief, Gulf and Caribbean Research (link). He is currently on the Board of Governors of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists and has served the Mississippi Chapter of the American Fisheries Society, Gulf and Estuarine Research Society, and the Southeastern Division of American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists as President. He is a member of the Science and Data Team for the National Fish Habitat Initiative. For further information on his research program see link

Ellen Peel, J.D., L.L.M.

Ellen Peel, President of The Billfish Foundation (TBF) grew up on the Mississippi coast, developing an early appreciation for magnificent marlin and sailfish.  Armed with a law degree from the University of Mississippi and a Masters of Law from the University of Washington, she joined the Center for Marine Conservation as a fisheries conservation advocate. In 1995, the late Win Rockefeller contacted Peel about working with TBF.

Peel has led TBF beyond its original mission in support of its tagging program and billfish research to effective advocacy for billfish conservation.   Utilizing support of applied biological and economic research and strong education efforts, Peel and TBF have cemented billfish management into the policy of the U.S. federal government and extended that idea onto the international playing field, where TBF is regularly involved with other nations and regional fisheries management bodies like ICCAT and the IATTC.

Under Peel’s direction TBF has championed catch-and-release, the economic sense of keeping billfish in the water and the advancement of credible science for sound management. TBF has pushed billfish conservation on many fronts - securing the world’s first international billfish conservation measures before ICCAT, keeping longline fisheries from developing off California and Mexico, and, most recently, helping Peru prohibit commercial harvest of billfish. TBF recently entered into an agreement with the governments of Central America to develop a regional sportfishing and billfish management plan.  Outreach and education efforts in the U.S., Bahamas and throughout the Caribbean are teaching new generations the value of sustainable sportfishing and conservation. Peel is currently organizing the 5th International Billfish Symposium to be held in New Orleans in 2010.

Clive Petrovic

Clive Petrovic is currently the Director of Econcerns, Ltd, an environmental consulting firm based in the British Virgin Islands. The company specializes in environmental impact assessments and projects related to marine environmental education and nautical tourism. Previously, he spent 12 years at the H. Lavity Stoutt Community College developing the Centre for Applied Marine Studies. The Centre offers programs in marine technology aimed at the yachting industry, maritime studies training boat captains and crew, and environmental programs focusing on environmental monitoring and interpretation. In addition, he has been promoting the development of aquaculture in the BVI. His marine research interests include studies on the population, distribution, and conservation of the Queen Conch. More recently he has been involved in monitoring coral reef health and the spread of invasives on the islands and in the marine environments.

Lionel Reynal, PhD

Lionel Reynal is currently head biologist of the Ifremer (French Research Institute for the Exploitation of the Sea) fisheries resources laboratory for the French Antilles. He is directing a project aimed at implementing a Fisheries Resources Information System which includes biological, technical, as well as economic and social data, which is currently harmonized with the national data collection system. He is working on the “MAGDELESA” research project on the development of sustainable moored fish aggregating device (FAD) fishing in the Lesser Antilles. The project emerged from a WECAFC ad hoc working group coordinated by FAO/COPACO, Ifremer and IRPM. Lionel is also the President of “Carbet des Sciences” (Scientific, Technical and Industrial Culture Center of Martinique).

Vomakasy Venchard, PhD