Professor Transform Aqorau is Vice-Chancellor of Solomon Islands National University and an international fisheries lawyer and policy specialist with extensive experience in Pacific fisheries governance, ocean policy and institutional development. He previously served as the inaugural Chief Executive Officer of the Parties to the Nauru Agreement Office, where he led the development and implementation of the Vessel Day Scheme and other major reforms in regional tuna management. He has also held senior roles with the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency, the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat and the Solomon Islands Government. Professor Aqorau is a Founding Fellow of the Pacific Academy of Sciences, a Visiting Fellow at the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security at the University of Wollongong, and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Queensland. His work focuses on fisheries governance, sustainable development, institutional reform and strengthening Pacific leadership over ocean resources.

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Dr. Yong Chen is Professor of Marine Science at Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. His research integrates quantitative fisheries ecology, population dynamics, stock assessment, ecosystem modeling, and management strategy evaluation to support sustainable fisheries under environmental change. His work spans fisheries monitoring and survey design, fish and invertebrate population dynamics, habitat suitability and spatial distributions, and the effects of fishing, climate change, and species interactions on fisheries productivity and ecosystem structure. He develops methods for assessing fisheries across a wide range of data availability, quantifying uncertainty and risk, and evaluating biological reference points, harvest control rules, and spatial management measures. Central to this research is linking population and ecosystem processes to practical assessment and management decisions. Working across North America and Asia, he collaborates with scientists, managers, and fishing communities to develop approaches that balance fisheries production, ecosystem resilience, biodiversity conservation, and livelihoods. Dr. Chen serves on the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) and served as Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences from 2011 to 2024. His work emphasizes making ecosystem-based fisheries assessment and management operational through approaches suited to different ecological conditions, data availability, and institutional capacity.

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Dr. Omar Defeo is a Full Professor at the Faculty of Sciences, University of the Republic, Uruguay. For more than four decades, his research has focused on fisheries and coastal social-ecological systems, with particular emphasis on small-scale fisheries, the conservation and sustainable use of coastal resources, and the implementation of the ecosystem approach to fisheries. His work integrates ecological, social, and governance dimensions to understand how fisheries and coastal ecosystems respond to human pressures and climate change. A central theme has been the development of participatory and co-management approaches that involve fishers and other stakeholders in decision-making, incorporate traditional ecological knowledge, and strengthen adaptive governance.

He has also conducted long-term research on coastal ecosystems, examining ecological patterns and processes from local to global scales and their implications for conservation and management. Dr. Defeo has published more than 240 scientific papers and is co-author of The Ecology of Sandy Shores. He has supervised more than 100 students from Latin America and Europe, including 60 master’s and Ph.D. graduates. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences of Uruguay and the Academy of Sciences of Latin America.

Dr. Beth Fulton is a Chief Research Scientist with CSIRO where she leads work on aspects of integrated oceans stewardship, marine climate adaptation and the blue economy. In shaping the strategic direction for CSIRO’s research in these areas, she is building off nearly 30 years of work developing various system modelling tools for looking at marine ecosystems, sustainability and climate adaptation. Beth is also an Adjunct Professor and co-Deputy Director at the Centre of Marine Socioecology, a centre focuses on working collaboratively to find transdisciplinary, equitable and sustainable solutions to the problems facing coasts and oceans.