Dr. Aleke Stöfen-O’Brien is Associate Research Officer at the WMU-Sasakawa Global Ocean Institute, World Maritime University in Malmö, Sweden. Her research interests include law of the sea, marine environmental protection and sustainable ocean governance. Prior to joining the WMU-Sasakawa Global Ocean Institute, Dr. Stöfen-O’Brien served as a Scientific Officer in the Marine Unit of the Federal Environment Agency of the Federal Republic of Germany. Dr. Stöfen-O’Brien has extensive professional experience gained during her career as an Associate Programme Officer at the Secretariat for the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), Montréal, Canada, as Research Associate at the University of Trier, at the Marine Unit of Directorate-General Environment (DG ENV) of the European Commission, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) as well as the WHO/Europe representation to the EU working on aspects such as marine environmental protection, marine litter, aquaculture, sub-seabed CO2 capture and storage, capacity-building and broader aspects of international and European law.
In her career and studies, Dr. Stöfen-O’Brien was awarded with several scholarships and awards and received funding for her studies from the University of Maastricht, Carlo-Schmid-Fellowship, the German Research Foundation, Young researcher award at the International Polar Year Conference 2012, Trier University Prize for Best PhD Thesis as well as a nomination for the European Society for International Law Monography Prize 2015. Academic contribution of Dr. Stöfen-O’Brien include scholarly publications in the area of marine litter, microplastics, areas beyond national jurisdiction, science-policy transfer, threatened species and habitats as well as risk-assessment approaches to sub-seabed CO2 capture and storage.
Dr. Stöfen-O’Brien was awarded a PhD (Dr. iur) in law from the University of Trier, Germany (summa cum laude), a LLM.Int degree in international public law from the Walther-Schücking-Institute of Christian-Albrecht-University of Kiel (summa cum laude), Germany as well as a B.A. European Studies of the University of Maastricht, the Netherlands and Sciences Po Bordeaux, France (with distinction).