Ocean Experts - Individuals

Annadel Salvio Cabanban obtained her Ph. D. in Marine Biology at James Cook University, Australia in 1992. She was in the academe in the Philippines and in Malaysia from 1979 to 2006. Interspersed in her academic career are regional, environmental projects funded by the Australian Government, WorldFish Center, Conservation International, and World Wide Fund for Nature. She has participated in various capacities in regional projects in the South China Sea Large Marine Ecosystem (LME), Sulu-Celebes (Sulawesi) LME, Pacific LME with grants from the Global Environment Fund, International Waters Focal Area since 1995 to the present and implemented by the Asian Development Bank, United Nations Environment Programme, and the United Nations Development Programme. She was the Co-Chair of the Large Marine Ecosystem and Open Oceans Working Group, International Waters Science Project (GEF ID 3343), UNEP and a member of the regional team on the South China Sea Impact Evaluation Study of the GEF. At present, she is engaged in the implementation of the Coral Triangle Initiative Coastal and Marine Resources Management Project in Southeast Asia and Pacific Countries. She is a member of the Commission on Ecosystem Management, International Union for the Conservation of Nature and the International Society for Reef Studies.

Choong-Ki Kim is a research fellow for the Division of Natural Resources Conservation in Korea Environment Institute (KEI). His study area includes ecosystem service, nature based tourism, climate change adaptation, and ocean renewable energy. His previous work at Natural Capital Project, Stanford University, was to develop a decision supporting tool, InVEST, to value the benefits from nature. He applied the InVEST models to various decision contexts to inform decisions for sustainable development. He also worked in numerical modeling studies with scales ranging from an estuary to a regional ocean. The focus had been on hydrodynamics, marine water quality, thermal discharge effects, storm surge prediction, transport processes of marine organisms, coupled biological-physical processes, and land-sea interaction.

Maripaz L. Perez is the Regional Director for Asia and Country Manager for the Philippines of WorldFish. She has a post-doctorate in Research Priority Setting earned from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 1990. She graduated from the University of the Philippines in Los Baños, Laguna, Philippines in 1977 with a BSc in Agriculture, majoring in Agricultural Economics. She completed her graduate education in the same university, finishing her masters in Agricultural Marketing in 1985 and her doctorate on Agricultural Economics in 1988. She has parlayed this educational preparation into a career spanning 35 years both in Philippine government service and since 2006, in WorldFish. Prior to joining WorldFish, Dr. Perez led the Small Enterprise Technology Upgrading Program (SET-UP) as Undersecretary for Regional Operations of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST). As the first Country Manager for the WorldFish Philippine Country Office (PCO), she has built the team from an original staff complement of five, to what it is now at 33. Under her leadership, the team completed the USAID-funded project “From Reef to Ridge: An Ecosystem Based Approach to Biodiversity Conservation and Development in the Philippines” and the “Climate Change Impacts, Vulnerability Assessment, Economic and Policy Analysis of Adaptation Strategies in Selected Coastal Areas in Indonesia, Philippines, and Vietnam,” among others. Currently, she leads the PCO research team in the implementation of the CGIAR Research Program on Aquatic Agricultural Systems (CRP AAS) that covers seven pilot communities in the VisMin Hub.

Sheila G. Vergara has managed projects that focused on coastal zone management, marine biodiversity conservation and coastal zone management training. She has served in governemnt with the Philippine Council for Aquatic and Marine Research and Development and with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and with International Non-government organizations such as the WorldFish Center and Conservation International. She continues to pursue her interest in coastal environment management and biodiversity conservation as the senior marine biodiversity specialist of the Sulu Sulawesi Seascape Initiative.

Dr. Luky Adrianto is Associate Professor in Social-Ecological System Analysis of the Fisheries and Coastal Resources Governance at the Graduate School of Coastal and Marine Resources Management, Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Sciences, Bogor Agricultural Unversity (IPB). He is also the Dean of Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Sciences, IPB. Prior to the Dean, he was appointed by the President of IPB as Director of Center for Coastal and Marine Resources Studies, since 2013. His first academic degree (B.Sc) was granted from IPB in Fisheries Sciences (major in Fisheries Socio-Economics) in 1993, and then M.Sc. in Fisheries Sciences in 2000 from Graduate School of Fisheries Sciences, Kagoshima University, Japan. His PhD was taken from the United Graduate School of Marine Environmental Sciences, Kagoshima University, Japan with major in Fisheries Resources Management in 2004. He has been working for more than 15 years in the field of coastal and marine resources management, including fisheries. His publications appeared in the Journal of Marine Policy, Environmental Impact Assessment Review, Environment, Development and Sustainability as well as in some reputable journals on related studies in Indonesia. In 2010, he published FAO’s Technical Book on Mainstreaming Fisheries Co-Management in Indonesia and funded by ICSF published book entitled Local Construction of Fisheries Management in Indonesia. With other colleagues from ZMT Bremen, he co-led SPICE II Cluster 6 on Social-Ecological System Analysis for Coastal and Marine Resources Governance 2005-2010. The other publication include Coral Governance in Indonesia (IPB Press, 2013), Mainstreaming Marine Conservation Governance for Sustainable Fisheries in Indonesia (IPB Press, 2015). Since 2010, he is acting as Regional Task Force in Integrated Coastal Management (ICM) for the PEMSEA (Partnership of the Environmental Management of the Seas of East Asia) which he has been involving in the capacity building program for Cambodia, Thailand and Timor Leste, and since 2014, he is also coordinating a Learning Networks of Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries Management (EAFM) in his country. In 2015, he was elected as the Co-Chair for International Advisory Board, Coastal and Marine Institute, Xiamen University, China. In 2016, he is appointed as the leader for the expert group for developing national fisheries policy platform in Indonesia for 2016-2020.

Marian S. delos Angeles is an environmental economist who has worked at the University of the Philippines, the World Agroforestry Center, and other agencies, including the World Bank. She helped initiate the Wealth Accounting and the Valuation of Ecosystem Services Global Partnership Program. She has led a major project on biodiversity and watersheds for the Philippines, and has authored works on climate and global change economics, the most recent of which was Private Farmland Environmental Management as Autonomous Adaptation to Climate Change. She obtained her PhD degree in Economics at the University of the Philippines and her postdoctorate training in resource and environmental economics from the University of Washington.

Dr. Laura T. David is a Physical Oceanographer and Professor at the University of the Philippines Marine Science Institute who studies ocean physics and its effects to productivity and diversity. She is currently the Chair of the Commission of Higher Education Technical Committee on Marine Science, and a member of the CHED Technical Panel on Science and Math. Combining her oceanography with her background in Chemistry, Dr. David has also gone around the world to build capacity of other scientist in using the LOICZ approach to calculate estuarine biogeochemical budgets. She was subsequently nominated as one of only 16 international Corresponding Members of the Intergovernmental Geosphere-Biosphere Programme---Land Ocean Interaction in the Coastal Zone project. In the Philippines, her expertise is also being tapped to assist in information related to climate change vulnerability and adaptation. She is currently a member of the National Panel of Technical Experts for the Climate Change Commission.

She is an awardee of the Outstanding Young Scientists (OYS) and The Outstanding Women in the Nation’s Service (TOWNS), a former L’Oreal National Fellow and a continuing OML Senior Fellow.