Keynote Speakers Bio
We are proud to present the keynote speakers of the 7th edition of the World Conference on Marine Biodiversity. The keynote speakers have been nominated by the Scientific Committee of WCMB2026.
David Obura
Opening Keynote
Dr. David Obura is a Founding Director of Coastal Oceans Research and Development – Indian Ocean (CORDIO) East Africa. CORDIO is a knowledge organization supporting sustainability of coral reef and marine systems in the Western Indian Ocean.
His primary research has been on coral reef resilience, biogeography and climate change impacts. His interests are now turning towards sustainability science pivoting around coastal, African and societal needs and priorities, in the broader sustainable development paradigm. David works from the local scale, through fostering innovative action to promote sustainability, through regional scale alignment and integration, to global scales.
Dr. Obura chairs the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES, 2023-2026), is on the Earth Commission (2019-2026), and is active in multiple international science-policy working groups, such as in supporting the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework in 2020-2022. He was awarded Kenya’s national honour, Moran of the Burning Spear (2021), and the Coral Reef Conservation Award of the International Coral Reef Society (2022).
Vidar Helgesen
Theme 1: Challenges to achieve UN Decade goals
Vidar Helgesen is Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO.
As an international lawyer by training, Mr. Helgesen has served in several functions throughout his career, with remarkably strong links to the ocean in the last decade.
As Norway’s Special Representative for the Ocean, Vidar has initiated and led the work of the High-Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy (2017-2020). He has served as Norway’s Minister for Climate and the Environment, Minister for European Affairs, Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. He also served as Secretary-General of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA). Prior to taking up his role of Executive Secretary at the IOC, he was Executive Director of the Nobel Foundation in Sweden.
Lisa Levin
Theme 2: Marine biodiversity: it’s all about the baseline and trends
Theme 7: Taking the pulse of the ocean: measuring the current marine biodiversity state and how it impacts us
Lisa Levin is Distinguished Professor Emerita at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego and a former Director of the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation at Scripps.
She is a marine ecologist who studies benthic ecosystems in the deep sea and shallow waters. Together with her students, she has worked with a broad range of taxa, from microbes and microalgae to invertebrates, fish and whales. Her research examines – among others - the biodiversity of deep continental margin ecosystems including methane seeps and oxygen minimum zones. She examines the effects of climate change (especially ocean deoxygenation) and human impacts on the deep ocean. She actively brings climate science to policy makers, and has contributed to multiple international reports, assessments and agreement negotiations (e.g., WOA, BBNJ, IPCC), all raising awareness about climate change in the deep ocean.
She is a co-founder of the Deep-Ocean Stewardship Initiative (DOSI), which seeks 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. In addition, she represents the Deep Ocean Observing Strategy (DOOS, a program within GOOS) to the Decade for Ocean Science.
Fei Chai
Theme 3: Building e-oceans to help us filling our knowledge gaps
Prof. Fei CHAI received his Ph.D. from the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University in 1995. He was a faculty member at the University of Maine from 1994 to 2021, and he became Professor Emeritus in 2021. In September 2022, Prof. Chai has been appointed as a Chair Professor at Xiamen University. He studies physical and biological processes contributing to the global carbon cycle, ocean acidification, open ocean and coastal hypoxia, climate variability affecting marine ecosystems and fisheries, and marine-based carbon dioxide removal (mCDR). He led and participated in over 40+ large interdisciplinary research projects, and he has published over 240+ papers in international journals with Google Scholar citations being 14000+ and h-index being 65. Prof. Chai serves as committee chair and member for several international scientific organizations and programs such as TPOS, NPOCE, and BGC-Argo, promoting interdisciplinary research and international collaboration. He has been recently selected as Co-Chair for the Digital Twins of the Ocean (DITTO), and also appointed as a trustee member of the Partnership for Observation of the Global Ocean Charitable Incorporated Organization (POGO).
Daniel Lauretta
Theme 4 - Marine biodiversity enthusiasts for the future: who are they, where do they come from and what drives them?
Dr. Daniel Lauretta is an Argentinian marine biologist, working at Argentine Museum of Natural Sciences “Bernardina Rivadavia”, as part of the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Téchnicas (CONICET). He has a background in marine biodiversity, invertebrate taxonomy and phylogeny, with a special interest in sea anemones and cold-water corals. His work integrates morphology and molecular approaches.
Daniel was a promoter and funder of the first deep-sea biology research group in Argentina (GEMPA) and was the chief scientist of the first deep-sea exploration with and ROV in the Mar del Plata submarine canyon. He is involved in several international initiatives, including the International Association for Biological Oceanography (IABO) and the G20 initiative Coral Research & Development Accelerator Platform (CORDAP).
For Daniel, science is a driver of innovation, environmental awareness and social transformation. He focuses on strengthening scientific collaboration networks. In addition, he engages students and the public at large in a dynamic and inspiring way to the marvels of marine science, both through educational talks and outreach activities.
Leen Vandepitte
Theme 5: Challenges and opportunities in marine taxonomic research: from specimens to genes
Leen Vandepitte is trained as a marine biologist. About twenty years ago, she started working at the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ). She has been involved in many projects and initiatives over those two decades and takes the lead on the MarineLife+ team at the VLIZ data centre.
Her main activities are centered around the coordination of the Aphia database infrastructure - which includes the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) -, the European Ocean Biodiversity Information System (EurOBIS), the Interim Register of Marine and Non-Marine Genera (IRMNG) and the LifeWatch Species Information Backbone.
She's involved in several international initiatives, where collaboration leads to a wider scope, awareness and quality of the data systems she oversees. The overall focus is always on how scientists can help in making these databases more complete and on how scientists and the public at large can make use of these databases.
Diva Amon
Theme 6: Science that makes a difference: supporting knowledge-based policies
Dr Diva Amon is a Trinidadian-British marine biologist, explorer, science communicator, and policy adviser dedicated to expanding understanding of the ocean’s least-known ecosystems and advancing evidence-based, equitable ocean stewardship.
Diva’s research focuses on the deep ocean and high seas - remarkable and vast parts of the planet that few humans have ever seen - and on how human activities, including deep-sea mining, pollution, and climate change, are reshaping these fragile ecosystems. Her work contributes foundational scientific knowledge in regions where baseline data are scarce, yet major industrial and policy decisions are increasingly being made.
She holds a PhD in ocean and earth science from the University of Southampton and has academic appointments at the Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago. She is also a Co-Founder and Director of SpeSeas, a non-profit organisation working to expand marine science, education, and advocacy in Trinidad and Tobago. Passionate about representation and access, she uses media and public platforms to challenge who is seen as an explorer or scientist—and to inspire broader, more diverse engagement with the ocean.
