Prizes for the best oral presentations were awarded to four early career scientists.
Best Oral Presentation – Workshop 1
Amit Sarkar – NIO, Goa, India
Title: Massive nitrogen loss in the seasonal oxygen-deficient zone over the Western Indian continental shelf
Short Biography
Amit Sarkar is a PhD student and Senior Research Fellow at the CSIR Centre of Excellence in Aquatic Biogeochemistry, National Institute of Oceanography, Goa, India. His focus is aquatic biogeochemistry and nutrient cycling in oxygen deficient environments (both marine and fresh water) with respect to global climate change. He spent time in laboratories at MPI – Marine Microbiology, Bremen, Germany and the School of Geosciences, Edinburgh University, Scotland and has undertaken more than 300 cruise days, including deep sea diving in the SHINKAI 6500 submersible.
Best Oral Presentation – Workshop 2
Federico Baltar – Linnaeus University, Kalmar, Sweden
Title: Will ocean acidification or eutrophication impact bacterioplankton diversity and carbon processing in the coastal Mediterranean Sea?
Short Biography
Federico Baltar is a Postdoc at the Centre for Ecology and Evolution in Microbial Model Systems at the Linnaeus University in Kalmar, Sweden, where he is investigating the role of anthropogenic perturbations (e.g., acidification, eutrophication, etc.) on marine microbes and the carbon cycle. He also works within the framework of the MOCA (Microbial Oceanography of ChemolithoAutotrophic planktonic Communities) project, funded by the European Science Foundation. His aim is to identify which chemiolithoautotrophic prokaryotes utilize the oxidation of reduced inorganic compounds to sustain their metabolism, and the extent and mechanisms by which this is done.
Best Oral Presentation – Workshop 3
Heidi Schuttenberg – University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK
Title: Working through complexity: a typology for strengthening coastal governance in the context of climate change
Short Biography
Heidi is currently an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Aberdeen in Aberdeen, Scotland. Her work focuses on understanding and strengthening approaches to coastal governance across a variety of socio-political contexts, with particular emphasis on responding to climate change impacts. She has worked at local to multi-national scales, leading projects for organizations such as the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the United Nations Environmental Programme. She completed her PhD at James Cook University, Australia.
Joint Best Oral Presentation – Workshop 3
Prateep Nayak – University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada
Title: Regime shifts in coastal-marine systems and the implications for governance
Short Biography
Prateep Nayak is a Banting Fellow in the Environment and Resource Studies (ERS) at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. He was a Trudeau scholar and former Giorgio Ruffolo Doctoral Fellow in Sustainability Science at Harvard University’s Center for International Development. His research interests include understanding complex human-environment connections, particularly change, its drivers, their influence and possible ways to deal with them. His current work is on social-ecological change, thresholds and governance in aquatic-terrestrial systems.