Eric is an assistant professor of environmental social science in the Department of Coastal Studies at East Carolina University. Eric’s research primarily looks at human-environment relationships in coastal and marine ecosystems and how the coupled interactions contribute to the sustainability of the resources. Within this broad area, he looks at the decision-making strategies of stakeholders, the behaviors of resource users in response to changes, and how formal and informal institutions shape how people interact with the natural resource. He has explored this relationship across the region, in Jamaica, Belize, Panama, and St. Lucia. Eric earned his Bachelor of Science in Marine Biology from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and a Master’s in Fisheries Science from Oregon State University. Eric has previously worked for the Belize Fisheries Department, Oceana Belize, and the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization.

Eric first became involved in GCFI in 2017, where he won a student award. He joined the board of GCFI in 2020.

Henri has spent most of his adult life associated, in various degrees, with universities of the Caribbean, Spain and Canada. His strong interest in the natural sciences led him to pursue a BSc in Biology at the University of Oviedo (Spain), an MSc in Natural Resource Management at the University of the West Indies (Barbados) and a PhD in Biology at McGill University (Canada). A few years ago Henri worked as a technical advisor to the Haitian government in issues pertaining to the development of fisheries and he is now a full-time Lecturer in Ecology at the University of the West Indies (Barbados) and an associate researcher within the FORCE project. As part of this diverse background, Henri is fluent in Spanish, French, English and Haitian creole. His post-graduate work focused on investigating settlement and post-settlement dynamics of coral reef fishes and in improving the methods we use to study the transition that most reef organisms make when moving from the open sea as larvae to the reef. Although still very much interested on issues pertaining to the population dynamics of reef organisms, Henri’s main line of research over the past few years has steered toward issues more directly related to improving the management of coral reef resources. He is currently working on the identification and development of simple indicators of the status of reef fish communities for ecosystem-based fisheries management in the Caribbean.

Joanna is the Marine Resources Officer for the Bermuda Government’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources, a post she has held since 2008. Prior to that, she worked at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS), formerly the Bermuda Biological Station for Research. Her research experience has covered everything from the ecology and health of seagrasses, mangroves and corals (including contributing to the CariCoMP Program / GCRMN) to the biology, ecology and management of both coral reef and pelagic fishes, as well as assessments of marine protected areas and the recreational fishery in Bermuda. In addition to working on topics relevant to the development of management plans for various local commercial fishery species, her recent research has focused on the dynamics and management of grouper spawning aggregations and the biology, ecology and control of the invasive lionfish in Bermuda. A native Bermudian, Joanna has a B.Sc. from Southampton University in the U.K., and a Ph.D. from James Cook University in Townsville, Australia and currently serves as an Associate Editor for the GCFI affiliated journal Gulf and Caribbean Research.

Brice Semmens is an Associate Professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego. Prior to joining the faculty at Scripps, Brice was a National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center. Brice’s research centers on fisheries science and quantitative tools in fisheries and conservation. He is currently the Director of the California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI), and a co-PI for the Center for the Advancement of Population Assessment Methodologies (CAPAM). In the Caribbean, Brice coordinates the Grouper Moon Project, a cooperative long-term spawning aggregation monitoring program in the Cayman Islands, jointly run by the Reef Environmental Education Foundation (REEF) and the Cayman Islands Department of Environment (CIDOE).  Brice joined the GCFI Board of Directors in 2015 and has been involved with GCFI since 2003 (when he won a student presentation award), and gave the keynote address for the 69^th GCFI Cayman Islands conference in 2016.

Michelle Schärer-Umpierre is a marine biologist with expertise in fisheries science. Her specific areas of interest include fish spawning aggregations, marine ecosystems, endangered species and passive acoustic research. Dr. Schärer graduated from the Department of Marine Sciences at the University of Puerto Rico with a PhD in Biological Oceanography and an MS in Biology. During the last decades she has led multiple scientific research for local and federal resources agencies in Puerto Rico as wells as within academia. Many projects have been designed through non-governmental organizations such as debris assessment and removal, marine protected area compliance as well as education and outreach. Some results of research projects include a review of marine protected areas for fisheries in the US Caribbean, the evaluation and management of fish spawning aggregations, fisheries-independent sampling of deep-water snappers and groupers, an assessment of the social-ecological system of La Parguera, the description of novel techniques to assess spawning aggregations of grouper with passive acoustic signals, global fin print shark and ray study, coral reef monitoring, the landscape ecology of marine habitats and their importance for fish connectivity, characterizations of critical habitats and essential fish habitat for commercially important species, and developing biological criteria to determine coral reef condition in the Caribbean. She has been involved in fieldwork directly conducting multiple dives at research sites with a variety of colleagues. Her experience in the development of artisanal fisheries in Brazil and Puerto Rico has led to a better understanding of the sustainability needs in order to harvest stocks of important marine resources. A member of the Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute since 2001 (54^th conference in the Turks and Caicos Islands) she has been involved as a student, presenter and now as a board member.

Manoj Shivlani is the program manager for the Center for Independent Experts (CIE), which has been organizing and conducting independent peer reviews of NOAA Fisheries assessments and programs since 1998. He holds a PhD from Florida International University, where he did his dissertation work on long-term changes in Florida Keys commercial fishing communities, and a master’s degree in marine affairs and policy from the University of Miami. His research interests are in the human dimensions of coastal and marine management, especially in fisheries, tourism, and marine protected areas. Shivlani has conducted research in the western Atlantic and Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the South Atlantic, including the development of the Bahamas spiny lobster fishery management plan, fisheries costs and returns studies in the US Caribbean, socioeconomic valuation of marine protected areas and fishery spawning closures in Puerto Rico, a commercial fisher characterization study towards the development of the Dry Tortugas Ecological Reserve, central Florida red snapper fisher surveys on social networks, long-term monitoring of commercial fishery uses in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, a characterization of Southeast Florida Coral Reef Initiative area stakeholders, and evaluation of water quality perceptions of Biscayne Bay.

Shivlani’s teaching experience at the Division of Marine Ecosystems and Society (MES) at the University of Miami includes graduate seminars in ocean policy, marine scientific methods, international ocean law, and marine protected areas theory and management.