Scientific Advisory Board

Dr. François GALGANI is a project manager at IFREMER, a French Research Institute who’s cutting-edge research is grounded in sustainable development and open science, the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea. He is a board member of the EU mission "Oceans" from the EU commission. He is chairing a technical / scientific group of 115 experts to support the implementation of marine litter monitoring in Europe, chairing the IOC/ GESAMP group on plastic pollution (2017-2021), and members of many international groups (UN / UNEA / Science Advisory Committee, G7 and G20 technical groups, experts’ groups of the OSPAR and Barcelona Conventions).

Professor Emeritus at IMT Atlantique, his main research interests lie in Remote Sensing, 2D signal processing, statistical and spectral analysis applied to ocean surface features detection and characterization. He received his PhD in Signal Processing at the Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble (INPG) and worked as a Research Associate at Aeronomy Lab, (NOAA) at Boulder, Colorado (USA). Prof. Garello served several terms as Vice-President Conference Operations as well as several terms as President of the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society. He was elevated to the grade of Fellow of the IEEE, for contributions to signal processing applied to remote sensing of the ocean and received the OES Service Awards in 2006 and the Distinguished Technical Achievement Award in 2021 "for signal and image processing of remotely sensed measurements of the ocean and connecting to physical oceanography solutions".

Dr. Bernard GINDROZ is very active in standardization, Chairman of several technical and strategic bodies at ISO level and CEN/CENELEC level, including ISO TC 268 on Sustainable Cities and Communities; JTC 6 on Hydrogen in Energy Systems; CEN/CENELEC Sector Forum Energy Management-Energy Transition (SFEM); the joint CEN and CENELEC Strategy and Advisory Body on Energy Management-Energy Transition; mapping research, pre-normative and standardization needs in support to EU strategic targets, as well as in support of innovation to markets strategies. He is an EU expert in Adaptation to Climate Change (EU mandates), and a projects’ evaluator/reviewer of several EU research and innovation programs. In addition, he is leading programs about circular economy and eco-design in EU Member States and EU candidate countries.

Dr Denise Hardesty is a globally recognized scientist focusing on plastic pollution. A broadly trained ecologist, her current work focuses on plastic pollution and marine monitoring & surveillance to reduce illegal fishing. Denise’s team takes a risk-based approach to address plastic impacts on wildlife, people and economies. Her work also focuses on drivers for litter losses into the environment, how to identify and implement effective policies to reduce plastic entering the environment, and gear loss from fisheries. She promotes the role of science in underpinning policy and decision-making, and regularly provides science advice to governments and international panels. She believes strongly in citizen science, having worked with more than 8,000 volunteers to help tackle global challenges.

Professor Jean Le Bideau is a professor at the University of Nantes, at the Institut des Matériaux Jean Rouxel (IMN). His work focuses on organic-inorganic hybrid materials; more specifically, in recent years, it has been aimed at confining liquids in macroscopically solid materials: solid, but with liquid properties, these materials have applications in biomedical and electrical energy storage. In addition to his teaching and awareness raising actions on ecology, his international responsibilities for the university, he actively participates in collective actions of the university and the socio-economic world, with a particular interest in the maritime world. He previously spent ten years at the University of Montpellier as an associate professor, and two years at Michigan State University as an associate researcher, after obtaining a PhD and an engineering degree in materials sciences.

Laurent Lebreton is Head of Research at The Ocean Cleanup. His research group focuses on understanding the sources, the transport and the fate of ocean plastics by leading large scale field expeditions, developing advanced numerical models and investing in remote sensing technology. Ultimately, Laurent is interested in closing a global mass balance budget for plastics in our oceans as a direct tool for the rapid implementation of a wide range of mitigation strategies from local to global scale. Laurent started his research on ocean plastics in 2010 where he tried to predict the formation of ocean garbage patches using numerical models on his computer at his home office in Raglan, Waikato. He’s involved in many groups working in the field of Marine Litter, including GESAMP and other UNEP funded working groups.

Dr. Marc Lucas is a senior oceanographer at CLS. He holds a BSc in ocean Science from the University of Plymouth UK, an MSc in Oceanography, and a PhD in Physical Oceanography both from the University of Southampton, UK. After 3 post Docs in France and Germany mostly focused on numerical modelling, he joined the CLS team dedicated to providing metocean services for Offshore Energy. This involved working on the use and interpretation of combined Satellite In Situ and numerical model data. He then joined the environmental downstream application unit focusing on issues such as sargassum invasion and marine plastic. In his current position, he supervises innovative project focusing on Earth Observation data and the acquisition of high quality in situ data for satellite applications.

Dr. Maes is a physical oceanographer from the French National Institute of Research for Sustainable Development (IRD) based at the Laboratory for Ocean Physics and Satellite remote sensing (LOPS). His research is focused on the dispersion of marine debris, through the characteristic scales of ocean dynamics, and the source scenarios for regional or global scale - either of physical origin, such as river inputs, or of societal origin, including the population density living near ocean coasts. Dr. Maes is a member of the SCOR International Working Group 153 "FLOTSAM (Floating Litter and its Oceanic TranSport Analysis and Modelling)", of the IMDOS community; his activities take place also within the GDR Polymères&Oceans and the recent PPR Plastoc, with the idea to promote an integrated system of the oceanic pollution of the oceans.

Dr. Umi MUAWANAH is a fisheries economist. She completed her PhD at the University of Connecticut and worked as a Knauss Fellow at the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service, sharpening her interests and experiences in bridging science and policy. Her research interests include the economics of fisheries management and governance, community co-management and social inclusion in marine resource management, economic impact evaluation, social impact of COVID-19 and science-to-policy communication. Since 2014 at the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries in Indonesia, she actively contributed to several research on national strategic issues, including the impact of anti-illegal fishing policies and economic integration of fisheries value-adding, bridging the divide between scientific research and policy on oceans and marine resources.

Dr. Sarah-Jeanne Royer is a bio-geochemist and oceanographer currently working at the Ocean Cleanup and at Center for Marine Debris Research at Hawaii Pacific University on plastic degradation in the environment. Previously, she investigated on the emissions of greenhouse gases from plastics bringing climate change to plastic pollution at the Center for Microbial Oceanography, Research and Education at the University of Hawaii. She also worked on microfibre degradation at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Her goal is to pursue plastic research to understand better the degradation and fragmentation processes of plastic and fate in the ocean in addition to the plastic accumulation on islands of Hawai’i. Her long-last objective is for policymakers to use data from scientists and volunteers to design better laws and policies to reduce plastic production & consumption.

Dr. Jean-François Sassi joined the CEA Cadarache (atomic research center) in 2013 as group leader for algae processes and technologies, after having worked as a polymer researcher in global chemical companies (Rhône-Poulenc; Rhodia), then worked for 7 years in a technology transfer institute (CEVA, Centre d’Etude et de Valorisation des Algues, Pleubian, France). His current research work involves among others the use of algae as renewable feedstock for biodegradable plastics. He is an expert scientific evaluator for European framework programs since 2016. In 2017, he was distinguished as International Expert for Algae at CEA. He earned his PhD in Chemistry at the University of Grenoble, based on research work performed at CERMAV-CNRS on topochemical aspects of cellulose acetylation and application to nanomaterials.

Odeline Billant is a PhD candidate in environmental law at the University of Western Brittany (UBO). She develops a methodology aiming to measure the extent to which law is likely to protect the ocean, providing an insight on the legal texts’ existing flaws and caveats. Inspired from interdisciplinary methods, her work is focused plastic pollution, and more precisely on plastic bags. Her seven study-countries span across the European, African and American continents, offering a diversity of legal systems and socio-economic contexts key to a comparative approach. Odeline Billant graduated from a Master programme in international relations from Sciences Po Paris in 2017 and a Master 2 in international and comparative environmental law from the University of Limoges in 2019. She is part of the All-Atlantic Youth Ambassador Programme, endorsed by the European Commission.

Isabelle Poitou is the founder of Mer-Terre association and works on aquatic environment waste issues. MerTerre association is structured around four main actions: tools for macrowaste characterization; engagement with at the policy makers - which gives the association recognized national, European and international expertise, supporting governments and businesses in developing and implementing curative and preventive waste reduction programs; facilitation of networks for organized clean-ups; and programs and awareness tools development for policy makers, the general public and children. Isabelle earns a DEA in Marine Biology and a DEA in Social Sciences. She completed a thesis completed within her association based in Marseille, dedicated entirely to implementing the actions and tools she identified and developed during her research.