ICAN People

Lead coordinators of the ICAN initiative are Dawn Wright of Oregon State University and Ned Dwyer of the Coastal and Marine Resources Centre, University College Cork, Ireland

Dawn Wright ICAN role: Co-lead coordinator of ICAN, Technical Task Force, Strategic Planning, U.S. Atlas Assessment Also: Professor of Geography and Oceanography and Director of the Davey Jones Locker Marine GIS/Seafloor Mapping Laboratory, Oregon State University Corvallis, Oregon USA dawn-at-dusk.geo.orst.edu

Dawn’s research interests include geographic information science, benthic terrain and habitat characterization, tectonics of mid-ocean ridges, and the processing and interpretation of high-resolution bathymetry and underwater videography/photography. She has completed oceanographic fieldwork in some of the most geologically-active regions of the planet, including the East Pacific Rise, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the Juan de Fuca Ridge, the Tonga Trench, and volcanoes under the Japan Sea and the Indian Ocean. She has dived three times in the deep submergence vehicle Alvin and twice in the Pisces V. She serves on the editorial boards of The International Journal of Geographical Information Science, the Journal of Coastal Conservation, Transactions in GIS, and The Professional Geographer, as well as on the National Academy of Sciences' Committee on Geophysical and Environmental Data and Committee on Strategic Directions in the Geographical Sciences in the next decade.

Ned Dwyer ICAN role: Co-lead coordinator of ICAN, Strategic Planning, Governance Also: Remote Sensing Specialist, Coastal and Marine Resources Centre, University College Cork Cork, IRELAND n.dwyer-at-ucc.ie

Ned has a MSc and a PhD in Remote Sensing. He has worked for many years with both optical and radar satellite data for a range of applications including fire detection, rice mapping and natural disaster monitoring. Since joining the CMRC in 2002 he has been working on development of the Marine Irish Digital Atlas - a web-enabled GIS for the presentation of data and information on the Irish coast. Activities have included project management, atlas design, dataset sourcing and preparation and development of educational and informational elements. He also contributes to teaching in University College Cork’s Department of Geography, at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, on remote sensing and GIS. Since December 2005, Ned is in receipt of a fellowship from the Environmental Protection Agency to work on aspects of climate change research related to the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS).

Val Cummins ICAN role: Co-lead coordinator of ICAN Also: Director, Coastal and Marine Resources Centre, University College Cork Cork, IRELAND v.cummins-at-ucc.ie

Valerie Cummins B.Sc., M.Sc. is manager of the Coastal and Marine Resources Centre. This currently involves the coordination of 18 research staff working in 20 EU and nationally funded projects and commercial contracts. In addition to project management, Ms. Cummins has considerable expertise in GIS as a tool for managing many aspects of the complex coastal environment, as well as a thorough understanding of issues pertaining to Integrated Coastal Management. Ms. Cummins is actively engaged in research in these areas. She coordinates two Strategic Research Areas within UCC’s Environmental Research Institute (Modelling and GIS and Environmental Management). She also represents UCC on the CHIU/Marine Liaison Group committee. In addition to research, Val coordinates the delivery of the ICZM module to UCC’s Geography Masters Students and acts as a guest lecturer for the Fisheries MSc course. She is also on the editorial panel of the international Marine Policy journal published by Elsevier.

Selorm Ababio ICAN role: Technical Task Force Also: African Marine Atlas Team and Department of Oceanography & Fisheries, University of Ghana Legon, Accra, GHANA sdababio-at-gmail.com

MORE TEXT FORTHCOMING. Selorm was a participant and presenter at ICAN 3 in Copenhagen, and is heavily involved in the UNESCO IODE ODINAFRICA program (ODINAFRICA = Ocean Data and Information Network for Africa).

Kathy Belpaeme ICAN role: European Atlas Assessment, Atlas Case Studies Also: Head of the Co-ordination Centre for Integrated Coastal Zone Management Ghent, BELGIUM Kathy.belpaeme-at-vliz.be

As head of the Co-ordination Centre for Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM), Kathy Belpaeme deals with a diversity of tasks implementing the European Recommendation on ICZM. The tasks are very diverse, ranging from local awareness raising, follow-up of European developments concerning the coast, implementing the EU ICZM Recommendation, to co-ordinating and advising coastal policy actions.

Marcia Berman ICAN role: U.S. and European Atlas Assessment, Atlas Case Studies Also: Director, Comprehensive Coastal Inventory Program, Center for Coastal Resources Management, Virginia Institute of Marine Science Gloucester Point, Virginia, USA Marcia-at-vims.edu

Marcia Berman came to the Virginia Institute of Marine Science in 1989 to direct the newly legislated Comprehensive Coastal Inventory Program, a GIS and remote sensing program. The Coastal Inventory is charged with mapping conditions along the 16,100 km (10,000 miles) of tidal shoreline in Virginia. This effort has expanded to include the state of Maryland and parts of North Carolina. Through additional grant and contract activities, Marcia has broadened the program to include the development of GIS based decision support tools to enhance coastal management at the local and regional planning levels within the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. In addition to her research interests in applied coastal science she has active research initiatives in the areas of shallow water use conflict, ecosystem risk assessment, and remotely sensed assessment techniques for wetland habitat valuation. Marcia is a coastal geologist by training with a graduate degree in Oceanography from the School of Oceanography at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. In her spare time she enjoys running, travel, and sailing.

Luis Bermudez ICAN role: Technical Task Force Also: Coastal Research Technical Manager, Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA) Washington, DC, USA bermudez-at-sura.org

Luis Bermudez’s research focuses on knowledge management, data mining, ontologies and semantic mediation related to the geosciences. He is currently the coastal research technical manager of SURA, while serving also on the steering committee and several project teams of the Marine Metadata Interoperability project (aka MMI). Luis has broad experience in coordinating, developing and designing web service oriented architectures for geospatial information systems. He also develops a variety of software applications in Java, as well as web applications (using Java 2 Enterprise Edition, servlets, JavaServer Pages, etc.) and standalone applications (in Abstract Window Toolkit and Standra Widget Toolkit). Luis holds a Ph.D. in Hydro-Informatics from Drexel University, and M.S. in Civil Engineering from Drexel, and a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Los Andes University (Bogotá, Colombia).

Simon Claus ICAN role: Technical Task Force Also: Contact Manager of the Belgian Network for Coastal Research, Flanders Marine Institute, European Network for Coastal Research Oostende, BELGIUM simon-at-vliz.be

Simon was an active participant at ICAN 2 in Corvallis, Oregon and ICAN 3 in Copenhagen. Read more from his online profile.

Declan Dunne ICAN role: Technical Task Force Also: Geomatics/GIS Specialist, Coastal and Marine Resources Centre, University College Cork Cork, IRELAND d.dunne-at-ucc.ie

Declan graduated from University of Limerick, with a B.Sc in Computer Systems (1.1 Hons) in 1998. After graduation he worked as a software engineer with Oracle in Dublin for 3 years. He joined the Coastal & Marine Resources Centre in November 2002 as a researcher in the Marine Geomatics team where he worked on the three-year Marine Geographic Information Systems and High-Performance Computing Network (HyperGIS/MarineGrid) project funded by HEA PRTLI III. This project involved the research and development of 3D web mapping tools for large scale datasets, such as Irish National Seabed Survey multibeam data, and 4D netCDF datasets, such as hydrodynamic models of the Northeast Atlantic. Key technologies used include Java3D, X3D, Goggle Earth KML, NASA WorldWind, IDL, Caris HIPS & SIPS, Apache HTTP Server, UMN Mapserver and OpenGIS standards such as WMS (Web Map Service), WCS (Web Coverage Service) and SLD (Styled Layer Descriptor). In 2006, Declan graduated from University College Cork with a M.Sc. by research in Applied Science (Modelling and Numerical Computing) where research work from the HyperGIS/MarineGrid project contributed to the final dissertation entitled "Development of a 3D Web-enabled Geodata Visualisation System with an Associated Neural Network Classification Tool". Also, during this period, Declan contributed to other projects including the development of various 2D web mapping portals. Declan developed the Marine Irish Digital Atlas (MIDA) website middleware and database components using PHP/MapScript and PostgreSQL RDBMS, which is accessed through a web-mapping interface. Declan also developed the MAPTURE project, where Irish and Welsh Natura 2000 data was compiled and stored in a central data repository which is also accessed through a web-mapping interface.

Tanya Haddad ICAN role: Technical Task Force, U.S. Atlas Assessment Also: Coastal Atlas Project, Oregon Coastal Management Program Portland, Oregon USA Tanya.Haddad-at-state.or.us

Tanya has an Master of Environmental Management degree in Coastal Environmental Management from Duke University. She has worked at the Oregon Coastal Management Program since fall 1998, the first 2 years as a NOAA Coastal Management Fellow working on the Dynamic Estuary Management Information System (DEMIS), and subsquently on Dawn Wright's NSF grant to construct the Oregon Coastal Atlas. She currently maintains and updates the Atlas and is always looking for ways to improve it.

David Hart ICAN role: Technical Task Force, U.S. Atlas Assessment Also: University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute Madison, Wisconsin, USA dhart-at-aqua.wisc.edu

David joined the Wisconsin Sea Grant Advisory Services team in 2002, after working with Sea Grant on coastal GIS applications through the UW-Madison Land Information and Graphics Facility. As one of the few full-time Sea Grant GIS specialists in the country, David provides assistance to local governments and other coastal constituents in the areas of coastal hazards, land use, floodplain management and water quality. He also makes these tools available for other Sea Grant Advisory staff. David is now working on building a Wisconsin/Great Lakes Coastal Atlas. David holds an M.S. in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of New Orleans and a Ph.D. in Land Resources from the UW-Madison.

John Helly ICAN role: Governance, Strategic Planning Also: San Diego Supercomputer Center, University of California, San Diego La Jolla, California, USA hellyj-at-ucsd.edu

Dr. John Helly is a scientist at the San Diego Supercomputer Center at the University of California, San Diego where he leads the Earth System Science program there, and has research interests in enivironmental and ecological modeling, remote sensing, and visualization. John is now working with partners to build a California Coastal Atlas. He has a PhD in Computer Science from UCLA, an MS in Biostatistics also from UCLA and an MA and BA from Occidental College in Biology.

Kathrin Kopke ICAN role: Technical Task Force, ICAN Outreach Also: Environmental Scientist, Coastal and Marine Resources Centre, University College Cork Cork, IRELAND k.kopke-at-ucc.ie

Kathrin graduated from University College Cork in 2002 with a B.Sc. (Hon.) in Plant Science and completed the M.Sc. Ecosystem Conservation and Landscape Management with Honours (1.1) in 2005. This M.Sc. is led by University College Cork and the National University of Ireland, Galway in conjunction with the University of Utrecht (and Nijmegen & Wageningen), the Netherlands, and the University of Helsinki, Finland. In addition to studying theoretical aspects, Kathrin obtained practical skills in habitat and protected area management, biological monitoring and GIS as well as an insight into the challenges that must be faced in managing and protecting environmental resources across Europe. Kathrin began working at the CMRC in May 2005 writing her M.Sc. thesis on a coastal brownfield site in Cork Harbour. This work integrated with activities of the Corepoint project. Kathrin has contributed to a number of projects with focus on her interest in Integrated Coastal Zone Management. Kathrin’s recent work as the data manager of the MIDA also involves using GIS technology and Open Source web-based mapping techniques.

Yassine Lassoued ICAN role: Technical Task Force Also: Geomatics/GIS Specialist, Coastal and Marine Resources Centre, University College Cork Cork, IRELAND y.lassoued-at-ucc.ie

Yassine Lassoued is a computer science and GIS researcher interested in several fields, notably: geographic data integration, ontologies, metadata and data quality, the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for data and metadata integration. He graduated from the National Civil Aviation Faculty (Toulouse - France) with an engineering diploma in Computer Science and Air Traffic, as well as a MSc in computer science and Artificial Intelligence (AI), in 2000. In 2005, he graduated from University Aix-Marseille 1, with a PhD in Computer Science and GIS. During his PhD, he worked as a temporary researcher and teacher in Universities Aix Marseille 1 & 2, and the Institute of Advanced Internet Applications. After graduation he joined the Coastal and Marine Resources Centre in 2006 as a researcher on the GIS team. In addition to ICAN, he is working on a host of projects within the IMAGIN and InterRisk initiatives.

Tony LaVoi ICAN role: Strategic Planning, U.S. Atlas Assessment Also: Chief, Coastal Information and Application Services (CIAS) Division, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Coastal Services Center Charleston, South Carolina, USA Tony.Lavoi-at-noaa.gov

Tony LaVoi is the Chief of the Integrated Information Services (IIS) Division at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Coastal Services Center in Charleston, South Carolina. The Coastal Services Center was established in 1995 with a mission to support the environmental, social, and economic well being of the coast by linking people, information, and technology. The Center assists its primary customers, the United State’s coastal resource managers, by providing access to information, technology, and training. The IIS division focuses its efforts on geospatial standards and interoperability, software application and database development, programming and visualization, and network and desktop IT support. Tony serves as the NOAA representative to the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) and the Geospatial Line of Business. He chairs both the NOAA GIS Committee and the Marine and Coastal Spatial Data Subcommittee of the FGDC. Tony has a BS in Engineering from the University of Wisconsin.

Roger Longhorn ICAN role: Strategic Planning, Governance Also: Information Policy Advisor, EUCC - The Coastal Union Consultant, UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission IODE Project Team, Oostende Co-Chair, GSDI Association Legal & Socioeconomic Working Group Member, EUROGI (European Umbrella Organisation for GI) International Affairs Working and Advisory Group Member, Executive Committee, CoastGIS Conference series Editor, GEO:connexion International magazine Director, Info-Dynamics Research Associates Ltd Bredene, West Flanders, BELGIUM ral-at-ALUM.MIT.EDU

See more about Roger at his Ocean Expert profile.

Roy Lowry ICAN role: Governance, Strategic Planning Also: British Oceanographic Data Centre, Natural Environment Research Council Liverpool, England, UK rkl-at-bodc.ac.uk

Roy Lowry is the Technical Director of the BODC. He took on that role in 2000 after working in the organisation for 6 years as a programmer followed by 13 years developing the concept of “project data management” and running the data management for UK projects such as the NERC North Sea Project, Biogeochemical Ocean Flux Study (BOFS) and Land Ocean Interaction Study (LOIS), and EU projects such as Ocean Margin Exchange (OMEX) and Inlet Dynamics Initiative Algarve (INDIA). During this period he chaired the international Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS) Data Management Task Team for nearly nine years. During this time considerable practical experience was gained in the collection and handling of physical, chemical, biological and geological oceanographic data, including participation in more than 10 oceanographic research cruises on the vessels of three nations. In addition to IT management responsibilities within BODC Roy researches and develops technologies that have potential to enhance BODC’s operational capabilities. This work has focused on the issues of interoperability between distributed metadata and data repositories through the adoption, and if necessary, development of standards. This has included active participation in two projects, NERC DataGrid and SeaDataNet, both building distributed data systems. Within these projects Roy’s work has focused on facilitating semantic interoperability through development of a well-managed controlled vocabulary infrastructure, including ontologies to support semantic cross-walking. To this end, Roy also serves on the Technical Advisory Panel and the Ontology Team of MMI. He holds a Ph.D. in experimental geochemistry from the Imperial and Chelsea Colleges, London.

Andrus Meiner ICAN role: European Atlas Assessment, Strategic Planning Also: Project Manager of Regional Assessments and Geospatial Data in Natural Systems and Vulnerability, Land (NSV3), European Environment Agency Copenhagen, DENMARK Andrus.Meiner-at-eea.europa.eu

Andrus participated substantively in the ICAN 3 workshop and co-hosted the EEA Conference on Coastal Atlases immediately following. Andrus is currently working on integrated spatial assessment and indicator development for the coastal zones. Specific responsibility of that task involves analysis of land cover changes and main sectoral policies with regard of their impact of state of coastal zones on European level. Andrus is also involved in development of EEA spatial data infrastructure and coordinates land use/cover information system. His professional experience includes numerous international assignments in the fields of modelling, environmental information, geospatial database development and integrated environmental assessments, he is co-author of an assessment report on state of coasts in Europe and a monograph on simulation modelling of "river catchment-coastal sea" system. Andrus is a graduate from Tartu University in Estonia and holds academic degree in environmental geography (1990), he has attended various international courses including research fellowships in USA and Norway.

Tim Nyerges ICAN role: U.S. Atlas Assessment, Strategic Planning Also: Professor, Department of Geography, University of Washington Seattle, Washington, USA nyerges-at-u.washington.edu

Tim Nyerges is professor of geography at the University of Washington, with research interests in GIScience and society, public participation GIS and decision support, land use, transportation and water resources. He is also president-elect of the 70+member University Consortium for Geographic Information Science. Among his many research activities and accomplishments is the development and evaluation of geospatial decision support tools (local area network and broadband network) for stakeholder groups on six grants (4 as PI, 2 as Co-PI) over the past ten years (approx $3.2M funded by NSF, NOAA, DoE). His tools help elicit stakeholder concerns about regional water resource planning, transportation improvement, hazardous waste cleanup, and regional climate change, then translate these concerns into database representations, and use these concerns together with engineering/scientific databases to foster diverse perspectives in public, analytic-deliberative environmental decision making. In August 2006, Tim was certified as an advanced open water scuba diver to bolster his experiential insight and future scholarly activity about the challenges facing coastal areas around the world. He holds a Ph.D. in geography with an emphasis on GIS, an M.A. in urban and cognitive geography, and a B.A. in economic geography with distinction, all from Ohio State University.

Liz O'Dea ICAN role: Technical Task Force, U.S. Atlas Assessment Also: GIS Analyst/Programmer, Washington State Department of Ecology Olympia, Washington, USA lode461-at-ecy.wa.gov

Liz has been working in GIS since 1996. She has a BA in environmental science from Willamette University, and a MSc in Geography from Oregon State University (working in Dawn Wright's lab). She has mapped mountain tops, seabed and the space between. Four years working at Mt. Hood National Forest in Oregon gave her a strong knowledge base in GIS, which she then used to explore the world of web GIS at Oregon State University during her Master’s research. There she developed a sea floor web GIS for the Virtual Research Vessel, as well as the Tahoma Virtual Atlas - a tool for a Seattle-area high school to incorporate community mapping into their science education. Liz worked at the CMRC from 2002-2007, as the co-coordinator of the creation of the Marine Irish Digital Atlas (MIDA). During that time she has overseen web design, atlas design and web GIS implementation, as well as being involved in other related issues (e.g., data and metadata acquisition and processing, database development, Open Source). She is now the manager of the MIDA project. In 2007, she returned to the U.S. and joined the Washington State Department of Ecology and is now involved in the building of the Washington Coastal Atlas.

Eoin O'Grady ICAN role: Technical Task Force Also: Information Services and Development Manager, Marine Institute Oranmore, Galway IRELAND eoin.ogrady-at-marine.ie

Eoin is an Information Technology Programme Manager at the Marine Institute (Foras na Mara), "the national agency responsible to the Irish government for advice on and implementation of marine research, technology, development and innovation (RTDI) policy and marine research services that critically inform policy objectives, management and sustainable development strategies for marine resources." Eoin has participated substantively in the ICAN 2 and ICAN 3 workshops. Eoin received his B. Eng in Computer Engineering from the University of Limerick in 1995. Eoin currently leads the Information Services and Development Section in the Marine Institute (Ireland) and is responsible for overseeing the Institute’s IT and data management systems. These includes systems to manage a wide variety of physical, biological and chemical marine data from environmental monitoring, seabed surveys, predictive modeling and fisheries survey programmes, and participation in projects such as SeaDataNet. Eoin also leads the Knowledge and Information Management programme of SeaChange the Irish national Marine Research, Knowledge and Innovation Strategy. This includes the development of information systems such as the Irish Spatial Data Exchange to support marine research and innovation. Eoin currently participates in the Irish Spatial Data Infrastructure working group. Previous to the Marine Institute Eoin has worked in a variety of software development and architecture roles for telecoms, manufacturing and financial services companies.

John Pepper ICAN role: Governance Also: Former Head of GI Strategy & Policy, United Kingdom Hydrographic Office, now an independent consultant Taunton, UK info-at-johnpepperconsultancy.com

John Pepper is the former Head of Geographic Information (GI) Services, UK Hydrographic Office (UKHO), responsible for developing new markets and business opportunities for marine and coastal GI services across the world. He holds a postgraduate Diploma in Marketing & Strategic Planning in addition to professional qualifications in Surveying Science, Geodesy and Cartography. John spent over 25 years in a variety of disciplines. He joined the UKHO in 1998 as a Senior Products Manager for their worldwide series of navigational and thematic charts. As director of the Association for Geographic Information (AGI) and a member of the Intra-governmental Group for Geographic Information (IGGI) in the UK, his focus has been on developing the Marine and Coastal Zone special interest group, to further the use of GI in coastal and offshore planning and asset management.

Greg Reed ICAN role: Governance, Strategic Planning Also: Executive Officer, Australian Ocean Data Centre Joint Facility and Co-Chair of UNESCO IOC’s International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange (IODE) Potts Point, New South Wales, AUSTRALIA greg-at-metoc.gov.au

Greg Reed is the Executive Officer of the Australian Ocean Data Centre Joint Facility, a national multi-agency distributed data management system, and Head of the Ocean Data Services Group of the RAN Directorate of Oceanography and Meteorology. Greg is an internationally recognised marine data expert. He is Co-chair of the IOC’s International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange (IODE) committee, and a member of the Management Committee and the Data Management Coordination Group of the Joint IOC-WMO Technical Commission on Oceanography and Marine Meteorology (JCOMM). He is also involved in developing international standards for oceanographic data management and exchange. Greg has participated as course coordinator and lecturer at a number of international capacity building activities including more than twenty IODE training courses. He is also an editor for OceanTeacher, the IODE training system for oceanographic data and information management and has been actively supporting the development of the African Marine Atlas and the Caribbean Marine Atlas.

Lucy Scott ICAN role: Technical Task Force Also: African Marine Atlas Team and Agulhas and Somali Current Large Marine Ecosystems Project (ASCLME) Grahamstown, SOUTH AFRICA lucy.scott-at-asclme.org

Lucy Scott is the Data and Information Coordination Consultant for ASCLEM. She is also heavily involved as editor-in-chief for the marine biosphere for the ODINAFRICA African Marine Atlas Project, (ODINAFRICA = Ocean Data and Information Network for Africa), supported by the IODE. Lucy has 10 years of experience in data management, the development of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and data products, particularly for coastal resource mapping, aquaculture, and conservation planning. She has participated in GIS atlas projects at several scales and is currently one of five editors of the African Marine Atlas, a project involving participants from 16 African, European and North American countries. Lucy has published in several fields, serves on the board of trustees of the Sustainable Seas Trust and is a member of the GOOS-AFRICA remote sensing working group. She received an MSc with distinction from Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa and does an extensive amount of world travel annually!

Ronan Uhel ICAN role: European Atlas Assessment, Strategic Planning Also: Head of Natural Systems and Vulnerability, European Environment Agency Copenhagen, DENMARK Ronan.Uhel-at-eea.europa.eu

Ronan participated substantively in ICAN 2 and through his efforts, advocacy, and funding as EEA Head of Spatial Analysis, the ICAN 3 workshop and related EEA Conference on Coastal Altases was made a reality. Ronan has 20 years in environmental and sustainable development information and analysis at the European and international level. He specializes in bridging between science (knowledge) and policy (actions), and in assessing the state-of-the-environment and policy effectiveness. Ronan has had coordination and editorial responsibility for many studies, reports and publications on these topics, with broad coverage from economic sectors to technologies to education. He has participated in many committees and working groups at the European and international levels on environmental governance, and has been a speaker/discussant at conferences and workshops covering all aspects of environment and development issues. Ronan's academic background is in geography, physical planning, and oceanography, with additional training in EU environmental legislation and regional policies.