Simon is a marine scientist and science adviser. Currently works for the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (Denmark) and the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (UK)—helping to develop science advice and to facilitate science.  

Through wide-ranging collaborations, he contributed to advances and applications of ecosystem-based approaches to management, especially in fisheries. Outcomes include better quantitative understanding of fishing effects; stronger links between fundamental and applied research; development of new concepts and methods; and orientation of research, monitoring, assessment and management towards ecosystem issues.

Adalberto (Dal) Luis Val is a Brazilian freshwater biologist with a distinguished career spanning more than four decades, dedicated to understanding the biology of Amazonian fishes and their responses to environmental change. He is a senior researcher at INPA, where he co-leads the Laboratory of Ecophysiology and Molecular Evolution and is Director of INPA (2006–2014) and Director of International Relations at CAPES (2015–2016). He currently serves as Vice-President (Northern Region) of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Val has authored over 280 peer-reviewed articles, 22 books, and 78 book chapters, and has supervised a large number of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. His work has received more than 10,000 citations and has been recognized with major national and international awards, including the Grand Cross of the Brazilian National Order of Scientific Merit and the Award of Excellence from the American Fisheries Society.

Esteban is a Master’s student from the Biosciences Institute, University of São Paulo, Brazil.

He is committed in understanding how the Theory of Island Biogeography shapes both species richness and stability in reef fish communities of the Southwestern Atlantic over a 20 period.

His work also focus on understanding how marine heatwaves are associated with the community variation and how biogeographical characteristics might modulate those responses to climate change.