Full Programme is availabe here for download:
LECTURERS
2024 International Advanced Course on Anthropogenic Impacts in the Deep sea
Nélia Mestre
Nélia Mestre is researcher at the Centre for Marine and Environmental Research (CIMA) at the University of Algarve, with long experience in deep-sea ecology. She obtained her PhD from the University of Southampton in 2009. Her work is mostly dedicated to understanding the anthropogenic impacts in the deep sea, particularly looking at the ecotoxicological effects and risk assessment of deep-sea mining. She has participated in several projects related to assessing the environmental impacts of deep-sea mining such as MIDAS, Mining Impact 2, BiDiRisk, DEEPREST and PS UALG-BGR. She is co-lead of the DOSI (Deep-Ocean Stewardship Initiative) Pollution and Debris WG.
Ana Colaço
Ana Colaço is a researcher at the University of the Azores for more than 20 years. She specializes in Vunerable marine Ecosystems, namely in hydrothermal vent and sponge aggregations. She studies trophic ecology of deep-sea systems, benthic ecology, ecosystem functioning and conservation. She is involved as an expert in several science-policy panels of the European Commission, International Seabed Authority, and the Portuguese government, and as nominee in CBD processes such as EBSA and the post 2020 GBF. She is presently co-chair of the Working Group Deepsea ecology (WGDEC) from the International council for the exploitation of the Sea. She participated to over 40 oceanographic cruises with submersibles (including 12 as a PI) and to five manned submersible dives (Alvin, Nautile and Lula1000). She is Commissaire of the Sargasso Sea Commission and member of the Advisory Board of DOSI.
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Jozée Sarrazin
Jozée Sarrazin worked 25+ years as a deep-sea benthic ecologist. She has contributed to the understanding of the structure and functioning of deep-sea ecosystems, with a particular focus on hydrothermal vents and seeps. She has proposed one of the first succession models for vent communities and was involved in the first long-term temporal study of this ecosystem, using data from deep-sea observatories. She was strongly involved in the development of ecological modules to monitor the temporal dynamics of vent ecosystems. She has a strong involvement in outreach activities. Her dual career (research/outreach) has been acknowledged by the yearly award of the Faculté des Sciences of the Université du Québec à Montréal in 2008. She led the Ifremer Deep-Sea laboratory for 6 years. She participated to over 30 oceanographic cruises with submersibles (including 2 as a PI) and to 8 manned submersible dives (Alvin & Nautile).
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Sérgio Jesus
Sérgio M. Jesus (M'09) received the Doctorates-Sciences degree in engineering sciences from the University of Nice, France, in 1986. From 1985 to 1992, he was a Staff Scientist with the SACLANT Undersea Research Centre [NURC, currently Center for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE)], La Spezia, Italy. During that period, he was involved with underwater acoustic field noise directionality and early studies on target detection using matched field processing. In 1992, he joined the Electronics and Computation Department, University of Algarve, Faro, Portugal, where he is currently a Full Professor. His research interests include underwater acoustic array signal processing, model-based inversion, underwater communications, as well as other aspects dealing with sound propagation in the ocean, including its usage for environmental and biodiversity monitoring and conservation. Prof. Jesus is a member of the IEEE Signal Processing Society, the European Association for Signal Processing, and the Acoustical Society of America.
Miguel Santos
Miguel Santos is a professor at the Department of Biology of the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto and the head of the Endocrine Disruptors and Emerging Contaminants Team at CIIMAR. He received his PhD in 2002 in Biology from FCUP-University of Porto with a joint supervison at the Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ). His research interests focus on the hazard assessment of endocrine disrupting chemicals and other priority and emerging contaminants.
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Miguel Caetano
Miguel Caetano is a marine chemist with scientific interests focused on the challenges posed by the changes in the biogeochemical processes induced during the Anthropocene. Its main research areas of investigation have been the interaction of pollutants between water, sediments, and aquatic organisms coupled with the early-diagenetic processes.
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Tainá Fonseca
Tainá Fonseca is a junior researcher at the Centre for Marine and Environmental Research (CIMA) (University of Algarve - Portugal), where she obtained her PhD in Marine Pollution and Ecotoxicology in 2019. T. Fonseca's research aims to evaluate the effects of marine pollution caused by human pharmaceuticals on marine organisms using biochemical, genotoxic and cytotoxic biomarkers.
Cármen Sousa
Cármen Sousa is a junior post-doc researcher at the Centre for Marine and Environmental Research (CIMA) of the University of Algarve, Portugal. She obtained her PhD in Biological Sciences and specialized in Genetic, Genomic and Evolution in 2022 from the University of Algarve. Her PhD was focused on the study of evolution of the immune system in Antarctic Notothenioids under cold-extreme environment. She worked in several projects related to several fields namely microbiology, immunohistochemistry, transcriptomics, metagenomics and proteomics in Department of Biological Engineering at the University of Minho and Centre for Marine Sciences (CCMAR) at the University of Algarve. Currently, she works on marine ecotoxicology in BiDiRisk and PS UALG-BGR projects under supervision of Nélia Mestre. Cármen is identifying protein biomarker candidates after metal exposures to evaluate the ecotoxicity in deep-sea invertebrate species from chemosynthetic ecosystems under deep-sea mining scenario.
Luís Nunes
Luís Nunes is Associate Professor with Habilitation at the University of Algarve and affiliated to the Civil Engineering Research and Innovation for Sustainability (IST/UTL Lisbon). He obtained his PhD in Civil Engineering in 2003 from the University of Lisbon, PT. He has been working on environmental forensics and risk assessment, with a particular focus on mathematical modeling.
Pradeep Singh
Pradeep Singh is a Fellow at the Research Institute for Sustainability in Potsdam, Germany. He also leads the IUCN's Commission on Ecosystem Management thematic group on Deep Seabed Mining and serves as Deputy Chair of the Ocean Law specialist group at the World Commission on Environmental Law. Pradeep is also a current Advisory Board member of the Deep Ocean Stewardship Initiative (DOSI). He is an expert in international law, the law of the sea and environmental law.
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Lisa Levin
Lisa Levin is a Distinguished Professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, and served as the Director for the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation from 2011-2017. Levin received her B.S. from Radcliffe College and earned her Ph.D. at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Following 9 years as a professor at North Carolina State University she joined the Scripps faculty in 1992. Levin's research interests include biodiversity of deep-sea continental margin ecosystems including chemosynthetic ecosystems and oxygen minimum zones, the influence of ocean deoxygenation and ocean acidification on upwelling ecosystems, wetland structure and function in the context of invasion, restoration and water re-use, and connectivity in coastal ecosystems. Levin's deep-sea research has been conducted on the margins of the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Oceans using ships, submersibles and remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) to sample and conduct experiments. She has participated in over 45 oceanographic expeditions around the world and served as Chief Scientist on many of these. Levin is founder and co-lead of the Deep-Ocean Stewardship Initiative, which seeks to integrate science, technology, policy, law and economics to advise on ecosystem-based management of resource use in the deep ocean and strategies to maintain the integrity of deep-ocean ecosystems within and beyond national jurisdictions. She is also science co-lead for the Deep Ocean Observing Strategy, dedicated to coordination of deep ocean observing programs to address science and societal needs into the future.
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Rui Santos
Rui Santos is a PhD student at the Centre of Marine Sciences (CCMAR) in University of Algarve. After his master's degree on testing the effect of drug administrations on zebrafish bone development, Rui pursued his life-long dream of working with cetaceans. Over the last decade, he has acquired field experience by working on a daily basis as a skipper for whale watching companies in the Azores. Over time, he took the initiative to develop a protocol to collect cetacean data using the opportunistic observational platforms. The database he built over seven consecutive years has more than 5500 cetacean sightings. Rui PhD thesis will contribute significantly to an improvement on cetacean's knowledge in the Azores, but also in North Atlantic areas which are related with.
Juliano Vilke
Juliano Vilke is a Ph.D. student in Marine, Earth, and Environmental Sciences at the Centre for Marine and Environmental Research of the University of Algarve (CIMA - UAlg). His research focuses on marine ecotoxicology, specifically evaluating the impacts of metals and emerging contaminants (e.g., micro- and nano-plastics, plastic-released chemicals, and pharmaceuticals). His Ph.D. thesis is related to ecotoxicological impacts in invertebrates species from cold extreme environments (deep-sea and Antarctica). Juliano also investigates how anthropogenic stressors interact with increased seawater temperature under deep-sea mining and global warming scenarios.
Pasqualina Gaetano
Pasqualina Gaetano is a junior researcher at the Centre for Marine and Environmental Research - CIMA (University of Algarve - Portugal). She obtained her PhD in Marine Resources from the University of Cadiz, Spain, in 2024. Her research focuses on animal physiology and molecular biology. Combining functional, biochemical, and molecular methods she investigates osmoregulatory mechanisms in teleosts, but also ecotoxicological responses linked to deep-sea mining in marine invertebrates. Currently, she works on marine ecotoxicology in PS UALG-BGR project under supervision of Nélia Mestre.
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Leandro Marinho
Leandro Teixeira Marinho graduated in Marine Biology in 2019 and concluded a Master's degree in Marine and Coastal Systems in 2023 from the Faculty of Science and Technology of the University of the Algarve (FCT-UAlg). The assessment of the effects of exposure to deep-sea sediments on the antioxidant defence system of the mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis and the first effects on deep-sea organisms following in situ exposure to a sediment plume produced by a prototype polymetallic nodule collector were the main research focuses of the dissertation. Since January 2023, Leandro is working as a Research fellow for project BiDiRisk - Biomarker discovery for risk assessment in the deep sea at CIMA-UAlg (https://www.cima.ualg.pt/pt/research/projects-in-execution/bidirisk) and also collaborates in two projects: DEEP REST -Conservation & restoration of deep-sea ecosystems in the context of deep-sea mining (https://deep-rest.ifremer.fr/); and PS UALG-BGR -Ecotoxicological study to assess environmental risks in the context of deep-sea mining, under the supervision of Nélia C. Mestre.