Experience

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  Friends of Ocean Action

  • Davos, Graubünden, Switzerland

  • Member

    • Sep 2023 - Present
    • Davos, Graubünden, Switzerland

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  GESAMP (UN Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of Marine Environmental Protection)

  • Vice Chair

    • Sep 2021 - Present

    The Joint Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of Marine Environmental Protection (GESAMP) is an advisory body, established in 1969, that advises the United Nations (UN) system on the scientific aspects of marine environmental protection. At present GESAMP is jointly sponsored by ten UN organizations with responsibilities relating to the marine environment, and they utilize GESAMP as a mechanism for coordination and collaboration among them. GESAMP functions are to conduct and support marine environmental assessments, to undertake in-depth studies, analyses, and reviews of specific topics, and to identify emerging issues regarding the state of the marine environment. GESAMP itself today consists of 17 experts, drawn from a wide range of relevant disciplines, who act in an independent and individual capacity.

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  Leading Women for the Ocean

  • Member

    • Sep 2021 - Present

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  Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation - Canada Chapter

  • Honourary Lifetime Member

    • Aug 2021 - Present

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  7 Mile Bay

  • Prince Edward Island, Canada

  • Founder and CEO

    • Mar 2020 - Present
    • Prince Edward Island, Canada

    Consulting on ocean governance, science, policy, literacy, and other ocean-related issues; science policy interface; women in STEM

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  Ocean Frontier Institute

  • Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS

  • Inaugural Chief Executive Officer

    • Sep 2016 - Dec 2019
    • Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS

    OFI represents an historic partnership among three Atlantic Canadian universities (Dalhousie, Memorial University of Newfoundland, University of Prince Edward Island); laboratories of three federal Canadian departments (Fisheries and Oceans; Environment and Climate Change; Defence Research and Development); the Royal Canadian Navy and the National Film Board of Canada. It also includes national and international industry as well as eight major international institutes. Research is focused on the Northwest Atlantic Ocean and the Canadian Arctic Gateway, one of the few places on earth where ocean changes are happening first and fastest.

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  Fisheries and Oceans Canada

  • Moncton, NB

  • Regional Director General, Gulf Region

    • May 2015 - Sep 2016
    • Moncton, NB

    Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) has the lead federal role in managing Canada’s fisheries and The Gulf Region of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada comprises all the waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence adjacent to the eastern coast of New Brunswick, the Northumberland Strait coast of Nova Scotia and western Cape Breton Island, as well as all of Prince Edward Island.DFO Gulf Region’s main activities include the management of fisheries, conservation and protection of marine resources and their habitat, marine science research as well as overseeing a harbour system that is critical to the fishing industry.

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  Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO

  • Executive Secretary

    • Jan 2010 - Jan 2015

    Headquartered in Paris, IOC-UNESCO has the mandate within the United Nations system for ocean science, observations, data and information exchange and services, including global tsunami warning systems. It is also the competent international organization for marine scientific research under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The Executive Secretary is effectively the CEO of the organization.

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  Fisheries and Oceans Canada

  • Assistant Deputy Minister Science

    • Dec 2001 - Dec 2009

    The ADM Science is responsible for providing the policy direction and scientific leadership for all science activities in the department’s fifteen science institutes throughout Canada.