Category Archives for "Contributors"

Suzanne Agius

Head of Policy and Permitting, Environment and Climate Change Canada
Government of Canada

Suzanne Agius is the current Head of Policy and Permitting in the Marine Programs Division of Environment and Climate Change Canada. Having studied marine ecotoxicology and law, she now has nearly 20 years of experience with disposal at sea permitting and monitoring. She has attended London Protocol and Convention Meetings as a Canadian delegate for several years, and has served as a member of the London Protocol Compliance Group since 2016.

Sara Seck

Associate Professor
Dalhousie University

Dr Sara L Seck is an Associate Professor and the Yogis & Keddy Chair in Human Rights Law at the Schulich School of Law and Marine & Environmental Law Institute, Dalhousie University.

Her research and teaching explore human rights-based approaches to local, transnational, and global environmental challenges, including business & human rights, plastic pollution, and the oceans-climate nexus. Recent co-edited books are (with Meinhard Doelle) the 2021 Research Handbook on Climate Change Loss & Damage (Edward Elgar) and (with Sumudu Atapattu and Carmen Gonzalez) the 2021 Cambridge Handbook of Environmental Justice and Sustainable Development.

In 2019 she received a legal specialist award in Peace, Justice and Governance from the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law. In 2021, she joined the editorial team of the Ocean Yearbook.

Mariamalia Rodríguez Chaves

Postdoctoral Fellow
WMU-Sasakawa Global Ocean Institute

Dr. Rodríguez Chaves has more than fifteen years of experience working with environmental non-governmental organizations and as an independent consultant on diverse environmental topics. She has a Law Degree, and a Masters Degree in Environmental Law, from the University of Costa Rica; and a PhD in Law from the School of Law of the National University of Ireland, Galway (NUIG). Currently, Mariamalia is a Post-Doctoral Fellow researcher in the Empowering Women for the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development programme at the WMU-Sasakawa Global Ocean Institute; a consultant for the High Seas Alliance, where she is responsible for coordinating the approach of Latin American countries in negotiating a new treaty on biodiversity beyond national negotiations at the United Nations; and she is the programme coordinator of the DOALOS/Norway programmes of assistance to meet the strategic capacity needs of developing states in the field of ocean governance and the law of the sea.

Shuo Ma

Vice-President (International) and Professor
World Maritime University

Dr. Ma is a professor of Maritime Economics and Policy at World Maritime University. He is also Vice-President (International) of the University and responsible for the University’s Outreach programs which include Asia-based MSc. Programs, Post-Graduate Diploma courses by distance learning, professional development short courses and the newly developed activities related to E-learning Solutions. 

He has taught shipping management and port management subjects at the University, including maritime economics, the subject that he has been teaching as a foundation study subject of WMU’s MSc. Program in Maritime Affairs. He has acted as visiting professor, external examiner, and research fellow in a number of Asian and European Universities. He has been involved in a number of research projects for private as well as public organizations. His latest book on “Economics of Maritime Business” was published by Routledge Taylor & Francis in 2020.

He holds a PhD degree in economics from the University of Paris.

Ellen Johanessen

PhD Candidate and Research Assistant
WMU-Sasakawa Global Ocean Institute

Ellen Johannesen is a PhD Candidate at the World Maritime University, Malmö, Sweden.. Ellen is a Canadian who has spent the past 15 years in Copenhagen, and since 2009 has been working in marine science administration as the Coordinating Officer at the Secretariat of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES).
With an interdisciplinary background, her professional interests include international marine science cooperation and administration, the ecosystem approach, and more recently considering the role of gender in the practice of international marine science.

Through ICES, she has contributed to a variety of international marine science projects, including as work package leader for the Atlantic Ocean Research Alliance Coordination and Support Action on the Ecosystem Approach to Ocean Health and Stressors; and contributing to the UNDP-GEF Large Marine Ecosystems (LME):LEARN Governance Mechanisms Working Group.

Ellen’s research perspective recognizes that change is needed at all levels, personal, political, and institutional to make the changes necessary for greater social justice and equality between genders, but also for the ocean. Without respect, understanding, and representation of diverse perspectives in science decision-making we will continue to struggle to change the current course of increasing degradation of the ocean, climate, and biodiversity.

Sebastian Unger

Ocean Commissioner of the German Federal Government and Director for Marine Environmental Protection at the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV)

Sebastian Unger is the Ocean Commissioner of the German Federal Government and Director for Marine Environmental Protection at the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV). Previously, from 2011-2022, he led the research group on ocean governance at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS), Potsdam. In this role he initiated numerous international research initiatives, lectured on ocean governance, and advised governments and international organisations on key marine policy processes for achieving ocean health.

In 2007 he was appointed to be Deputy Secretary to the OSPAR Commission for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North‐East Atlantic. In that role he supported negotiations of new international legislation for marine conservation and environmental impacts of human activities, including the development of the world’s first network of marine protected areas on the “High Seas”.

From 2004-2007 Sebastian Unger served at the German Federal Foreign Office, where he coordinated the Ministry’s work on international maritime affairs. He has an academic background in biology with political science.

Jens-Uwe Schröder-Hinrichs

Vice-President (Academic Affairs) and Professor
World Maritime University

Professor Jens-Uwe Schröder-Hinrichs is Vice-President (Academic Affairs) of the World Maritime University (WMU), a university established by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), a specialized agency of the United Nations.

He oversees and directs the development of the academic agenda and related activities to strengthen the academic profile of the University, and is responsible for the academic developments needed to keep WMU as the global centre of excellence in maritime and ocean education, research and capacity building. In this, he is supported by a wide range of experience gathered over two decades, during which he has taken on increasingly responsible academic and managerial roles at WMU.

Professor Schröder-Hinrichs is an internationally recognized maritime safety expert with special emphasis on the implementation and enforcement of the legal instruments of the IMO, the parent body of WMU. Professor Schröder-Hinrichs has been involved for more than 20 years in numerous capacity-building missions during which he advised IMO member State administrations in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, the Caribbean, and Northern America as well as the Black Sea and Caspian Sea areas on issues related to their international obligations under various instruments of the IMO.

In recent years Professor Schröder-Hinrichs developed a strong interest in the implications of increased levels of automation and new technologies in maritime transport. He was the principal investigator for “Transport 2040: Automation, Technology, Employment – The Future of Work”, which was commissioned by the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) and launched in 2019.

Aykut I. Ölcer

Director of Maritime Research and Professor
World Maritime University

Professor Dr. Aykut I. ÖLÇER is a naval architect and marine engineer holding the Nippon Foundation Professorial Chair in “Marine Technology and Innovation” at the World Maritime University (WMU). He is currently the Director of Research of WMU as well as the Head of Maritime Energy Management Specialization (MSc program). He served as the Editor-in-Chief of WMU Journal of Maritime Affairs (JOMA) and Book Series between February’17 and February’19. Prior to joining WMU, he worked at Newcastle University (England), University of Strathclyde (Scotland) and Istanbul Technical University (Türkiye) within the fields of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering. He played an important role in Newcastle University’s first international branch in Singapore to help the University achieve its objectives in teaching/learning and research activities in the UG and PG programs of Marine Technology.

For many years, he has conducted research independently/jointly and collaborated with other researchers, academics and students all over the world, in particular from Europe and Asia. Dr Ölçer was involved in numerous EU funded FP5, FP6, FP7, Horizon 2020 and EU Horizon projects and IMO projects as well as IAMU and regional projects in Scandinavia. He currently leads the research priority areas, namely ‘Maritime Energy Management” and “Marine Technology and Innovation”, at WMU. He has published results of his research in leading, internationally peer-reviewed journals such as “Journal of Cleaner Production”, “Fuel Processing Technology”, “European Journal of Operational Research”, “Computers and Operational Research”, “Applied Soft Computing”, “Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment” and so on. He is the main Editor of the book “Trends and Challenges in Maritime Energy Management ”, which was one of the most downloaded Springer books in 2018. He delivered keynote speeches all over the world, in particular in the discipline of maritime decarbonisation.

Beatriz Martinez Romera

Associate Professor on Environmental and Climage Change Law
University of Copenhagen

Dr. Beatriz Martinez Romera is associate professor of environmental and climate change law at the University of Copenhagen Faculty of Law. She has a keen interest in the international climate negotiations, and the regulatory processes at the International Civil Aviation Organization and the International Maritime Organization, as well as the developments at the EU level. For the last 13 years Dr. Martinez Romera has been teaching and researching on the field of climate, environment and energy transition law. She is the coordinator of the master courses on Climate Change Law and International Environmental Law and the Advanced LLM on Energy Law (NSELP). In 2020 she was awarded the Young Investigator Carlsberg Foundation Grant for a 3-year project on International Law-Making: Actors in Shipping and Climate Change. She is PI for a number of research projects including the Independent Research Fund Denmark project Enhancing Climate Action through International Law and the NOS-HS project Climate Change and Ocean Governance: Understanding International and Regional Ocean Regimes through the Lens of Climate Change.