Who We Are

Dr. Rima Jabado

Dr. Rima Jabado is the Deputy Chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC), co-Chair of the IUCN SSC Marine Conservation Committee, and Chair of the IUCN SSC Shark Specialist Group. As a scientist and conservationist, she has spent over 20 years developing and leading conservation initiatives globally. Her work focuses on bridging the gap between science and policy to ensure issues such as bycatch, threatened species conservation, and illegal trade are effectively addressed through national and international policy and management frameworks. Her research has directly in formed fisheries management, wildlife trade regulation, and multilateral environmental agreements for the protection of threatened species. She currently leads the Important Shark and Ray Areas (ISRA) project, a global initiative designed to integrate sharks, rays, and chimaeras into area-based management and spatial planning worldwide.

She serves as the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) Appointed Scientific Councillor for Marine Fish, and sits on the Advisory Committee for the CMS Sharks Memorandum of Understanding as the representative of the Asia region. In parallel, she founded the Elasmo Project, a non-profit initiative that encourages and supports work in data-poor regions, with a particular focus on understanding and addressing shark and ray fisheries and trade.

Dr. Beth Polidoro

Dr. Beth Polidoro is the Director of the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, located in Solomons, Maryland, USA, where she is also a Professor of Marine Conservation and Environmental Chemistry. She has more than 20 years' experience working with IUCN, primarily working on Red List assessments for a wide variety of marine species and ecosystems. She is the co-Chair of the IUCN SSC Marine Fishes Red List Authority, and the Red List Coordinator for the IUCN SSC Tuna and Billfishes Specialist Group and the SSC Coral Specialist Group. Over the past decade, she has been active in building non-profit and academic partnerships with several IUCN Knowledge Product initiatives, including the Red List of Threatened Species, Red List of Ecosystems, and the Species Threat Abatement and Restoration metric (STAR). 

Dr. Ginna Minton

Gianna Minton started her career in the field of education, but became so inspired by Oman’s marine environment during her 8 years there, that she started a new career in marine mammal research and conservation. Gianna has a PhD focusing on the unique non-migratory humpback whales of the Arabian Sea, and has conducted field-based cetacean research in Oman, Malaysia, Gabon, Senegal, Guinea, Cameroon and Congo. A Co-Chair of the IUCN SSC Cetacean Specialist Group, she has also worked on turtle and fisheries monitoring, and is now based in the Netherlands, where she coordinates the Consortium for the Conservation of the Atlantic Humpback Dolphin (CCAHD) and the Arabian Sea Whale Network (ASWN), and is a member of the IUCN SSC-WPCA Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force and Important Marine Mammal Areas (IMMA) Secretariat. Gianna is also a member of the scientific council/committee of the Convention on Migratory Species and the International Whaling Commission.

Dr. Matthew Gollock

Matthew Gollock is the Marine and Freshwater Programme Manager at ZSL, and has over 20 years’ experience researching and conserving aquatic species. He is interested in migratory species - particularly elasmobranchs and anguillid eels – and the management and policy mechanisms required to conserve their unique life histories. He is the Chair of the Anguillid Eel Specialist Group.

Dr. Yvonne Sadovy

After obtaining a PhD in Zoology from the University of Manchester Yvonne took up the Directorship of the Fisheries Research Laboratory of the government of Puerto Rico. Despite moving to Chicago, she continued work in the Caribbean consulting for the Caribbean Fisheries Management Council. In 1993 Yvonne took up a position at the University of Hong Kong and full professorship in 2007.  Her work focused on reef fishes, their reproductive biology, conservation and management, focusing on the most vulnerable taxa and the impacts of exploitation and trade. Yvonne founded the IUCN Groupers & Wrasses Specialist Group in 1998 and co-founded Science and Conservation of Fish Aggregations in 2000.

Dr. Aaron Savio Lobo

Aaron is a marine conservation practitioner. His interest in the sea was ironically driven by his love for seafood. His work has largely focused on understanding the costs of seafood production on vulnerable marine species and livelihoods and finding ways to make the seafood system more sustainable through policy and practice. His work involves designing, supporting and implementing projects which include understanding the impacts of tropical trawl fisheries, managing marine protected areas and setting up fisheries monitoring programmes in South Asia and West Africa. He has worked for GIZ (Indo-German Biodiversity Programme) and he is now co-Chair of the IUCN SSC Sea Snake Specialist Group

Dr. Zeehan Jaafar

Zeehan Jaafar is an ichthyologist focusing on systematics, and ecology of nearshore fishes, with keen interests in gobioid fishes and their relatives. Her present work aims to elucidate the cryptic fish biodiversity in species-rich tropical areas, while investigating the response mechanisms of these fishes to impacted coastal and marine habitats. Data resulting from her work inform the conservation and management of these fish taxa through the identification of mitigation pathways against impact drivers, and application of nature-based or nature-augmented solutions to improve resilience in urbanised near-shore habitats. 

Dr. Jean Harris

Jean Harris directs WILDOCEANS, the marine programme of the WILDTRUST, a non-governmental public interest organisation based in South Africa. Prior to this she led the scientific services team of Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, the conservation agency which manages the protected areas and biodiversity in the eastern province of South Africa. Jean has served on the Scientific Authority that advises the South African Minister of Environment on biodiversity matters, as well as the Marine Science for Management Programme Committee of the Western Indian Ocean Marine Science Association (WIOMSA). Her current initiatives include the Ocean Stewards Programme which aims to build offshore marine science capacity and inspire a new generation of ocean advocates. She is a core team member for three offshore projects funded through the African Coelacanth Ecosystem Programme (ACEP), that are conducting research in support of marine protected area expansion. Jean is also the skipper of RY Angra Pequena, the 72 ft research and training vessel.