Martin is the Chair/CEO of the SCRFA Board of Directors, based in Brisbane, Australia.
Martin has been working for over 22 years on marine protected area and fisheries management in Australia’s oceans. He is the Manager of the Coral Sea Marine Park in the Australian Government, and worked previously as a fisheries/MPA manager with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.
He is the Chair of the Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute Board of Directors, and also is involved in other organisations including the International Coral Reef Initiative. Martin has an applied science degree in fisheries, and has extensive research and management experience working on fish spawning aggregations, coral and reef fish in Asia-Pacific and Caribbean.
He has been a SCRFA Board member since its inception in 2000, and Chair of Board since 2004. A key project Martin is working on for SCRFA is the Global Fish Aggregation Database
Yvonne is Executive Director of SCRFA, and a founding Board member, based in Hong Kong.
Yvonne was a Professor, for over 25 years, at the University of Hong Kong's Division of Ecology & Biodiversity, School of Biological Sciences, where she teaches courses in Fish Biology, Fisheries and School of Biological Sciences, where she teaches courses in Fish Biology, Fisheries and Mariculture, Marine Biology and Conservation Ecology and supervises masters and doctoral students. Yvonne is also the co-Chair of the IUCN Specialist Group of Groupers and Wrasses, which she founded and is one of the founding members of SCRFA. She is also a Board member of the Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute (GCFI).
Yvonne has worked variously on the biology, management and conservation of reef fishes for over 20 years and has produced over 100 peer-reviewed and other publications, including 5 books. She has a long-standing interest in reproductive biology, especially the relationship between mating systems and vulnerability to fishing, with a particular emphasis on groupers, spawning aggregations and sex-changing fishes
Rick is Research Professor of Zoology/Marine Biology at The University of the Virgin Islands.
Rick earned Bachelor of Science and Masters of Science degrees in Fisheries from Humboldt State University and University of Washington before receiving his PhD in Zoology in 1996 from the University of New Hampshire under the guidance of Dr. Peter Sale. His dissertation focused on the recruitment patterns, demographic rates and behavior of the bicolor damselfish in the Virgin Island and Jamaica. He served for a year as resident director of the Hofstra Marine Lab, in St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica then began working for the University of the Virgin Islands as assistant research professor.
In 1999 Rick was appointed founding director of UVI’s Center for Marine and Environmental Studies on St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. During his tenure as director he helped establish the Master’s in Marine and Environmental Science graduate program and has expanded UVI’s research infrastructure and diving program to include technical nitrox and closed circuit rebreathers for studying reef fish spawning aggregations and mesophotic reefs. With a focus on the conservation and sustainable management of fisheries and coral reefs, Dr. Nemeth helped develop the USVI’s long-term coral reef monitoring program and initiated research on critical juvenile fish habitat and conservation and management of reef fish spawning aggregations. This work was instrumental in establishing the Grammanik Bank seasonal closure which protects a multispecies spawning aggregation site in the USVI. His research is currently focused on: 1) using acoustic telemetry to determine spatial and temporal patterns of movements of aggregating species (groupers, snappers, triggerfish, parrotfish) during spawning as a means of identifying biologically relevant boundaries for protecting spawning aggregation sites; 2) movement patterns of other reef fishes (snapper, tarpon, lionfish, stingrays) in relation to ecological and environmental factors; 3) impacts of invasive species (lionfish, Halophila seagrass) on demographic rates of native reef fishes; 4) loss of large Scarus species (rainbow, midnight and blue parrotfish) in the Caribbean on coral reef condition. He has conducted this research throughout the Caribbean and tropical Pacific including US and British Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Bermuda, Bonaire, Netherland Antilles, Pohnpei, Fiji and French Polynesia.
Jan works for the Department of Blue Economy in Seychelles, managing a World Bank project that supports marine spatial planning and improved fisheries governance and management in the country.
Originally from the UK, he relocated to the warmer climes of the Seychelles in 1998 following completion of a Master of Science Degree in Applied Marine Science at the University of Plymouth. Jan managed fisheries research at the Seychelles Fishing Authority (SFA) for over 10 years, where he was responsible for fisheries data collection, stock assessment and ecological studies. He has also worked extensively in the Western Indian Ocean, leading regional research on spawning aggregation fisheries, and currently supports the regional grant-making programme of the Western Indian Ocean Marine Science Association (WIOMSA).
In 2015, Jan completed his PhD at the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University. His research focused on how the dynamic interaction between fish and fisher behaviour influences vulnerability to overfishing and management of spawning aggregation fisheries. He has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications, books and technical reports.
Dr Kevin Rhodes is the Coastal Fisheries Coordinator with MarAlliance, a Research Associate with the University of Guam, and a specialist with the IUCN Red List Groupers and Wrasses Specialist Group.
Kevin earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Aquatic Biology from the University of Texas at Austin, a Master of Science degree in Marine Science from California State University at Hayward and a PhD in Ecology and Biodiversity from the University of Hong Kong. His dissertation was entitled “Reproductive biology and population genetic structure of the camouflage grouper, Epinephelus polyphekadion, and its management implications.
Kevin is an active research scientist in tropical reef fish biology and fisheries ecology. His primary research focus is tropical reef fish reproduction, fish life history, conservation biology and fish spawning aggregation dynamics. Recent and past research includes the identification of spatial habitat requirements for elasmobranchs and aggregating bony fish for MPA design, and fish market and life history analyses with a focus on improving market-based and fisheries management. He provides technical training and scientific support to governments and fisheries management units throughout the Caribbean and central and western Pacific. He has helped to form fishers’ cooperatives in the Pacific and develop value-adding opportunities and sustainable fish markets to improve fisher income and as alternative livelihoods to fishing. Dr Rhodes has authored and published numerous articles on fisheries management, the biology and behavior of reef fishes, including a number of species that aggregate to spawn, and has co-authored training manuals for spawning aggregation monitoring and management. He is currently collaborating with Dr. Nemeth to identify and compare vocalizations of fish during spawning aggregation periods. During his spare time, Kevin works with researchers at NASA and SETI on the ecology of extremophilic cyanobacteria in the world’s hyperarid deserts as analogs to Mars and Mars rover development.
Dr Brian Luckhurst (Retired: Bermuda Fisheries)
Dr Rick Hamilton (The Nature Conservancy)
Dr Sebastian Troeng (Conservation International, USA)
Dr Terry Donaldson (University of Guam)
Dr Janet Gibson (Wildlife Conservation Society, Belize
Dr Michael Domeier (CSI Marine, Hawaii)
Dr Pat Colin (Coral Reef Research Foundation, Palau)
Dr Ken Lindeman (Florida Institute of Technology)
Dr. Brad Erisman (University of Texas at Austin)
Dr. Enric Sala (Wildlife Conservation Society and National Geographic)
