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Mangroves as Fish Habitat Featured Symposium Speakers
University of Miami, Rosenstiel School of Marine and Aquatic Sciences

Stephen Blaber's research interests center primarily on tropical inshore and estuarine fishes. He obtained his BSc (Hons) from Reading University (UK) (1970) and a PhD from Rhodes University (South Africa) (1973) and subsequently a DSc from the University of Natal (South Africa). Prior to joining CSIRO he was an Associate Professor in the Department of Zoology at the University of Natal. From 1983-1986, he was section head for the CSIRO Fisheries Southern Program (based in Cronulla & Hobart) working on deep water fishes, but in 1986 moved to the CSIRO Cleveland laboratory to lead a team working on the fish and fisheries of tropical Australia. He is currently a Chief Research Scientist of the Division. Dr Blaber has also developed a series of large-scale international collaborative research projects, mainly on inshore and estuarine fishes, in the South Pacific, South East Asia and South Asia, funded through ACIAR, AusAID and foreign governments. The research in south east Asia has given rise to important new scientific discoveries and is playing a major role in developing and promoting sustainable fishing strategies in the region. Also the scientific, economic and cultural success of the tuna baitfish project (PNG, Solomon Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Indonesia) based on the research group built up by Stephen Blaber, have established CSIRO as a world leader in this field. Dr Blaber has published over 160 papers in scientific journals and has published two books on tropical estuarine fishes.

Ivan Nagelkerken is currently an Assistant Professor at the Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands, and a Visiting Professor at the Free University of Brussels, Belgium. Born in Curacao (Netherlands Antilles), Nagelkerken obtained his university education in the Netherlands, earning his MSc in Aquatic Ecology and Marine Biology (University of Nijmegen and University Groningen, respectively). Subsequently he returned to Curaçao where he worked at the Carmabi Ecological Institute as Marine Ecologist and Marine Park Assistant Manager. During this time, his main research focus was on coral ecology and marine conservation, which included studies on coral reef diseases (sponges, corals, sea fans, and urchins), coral rehabilitation, coral regeneration, coral bleaching, sea turtle migration, oil pollution, marine debris, and coastal resource use. The central theme of his PhD research (University of Nijmegen, 2000) was utilization of shallow-water habitats by juvenile fishes in tropical marine waters.

Currently, Nagelkerkens main research focus is on reef fish connectivity among mangroves, seagrass beds and coral reefs. Most of his research focuses on systems in the western Indian Ocean (Tanzania and Zanzibar), and in the Caribbean (Curaçao and Aruba). Nagelkerken has written several book chapters, over 50 scientific articles in international, peer-reviewed journals and has a steady stream of manuscripts in review. He currently leads a research team of composed of numerous PhD and MSc students working on fish connectivity among habitats. Last year, he received a five-year fellowship from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, a prodigious program that recognizes and supports The Netherlands most talented young researchers.

Jurgenne Honculada Primavera, first Senior Scientist of the Aquaculture Department of the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center (SEAFDEC/AQD) based in Iloilo, central Philippines finished B.S. Zoology cum laude at the University of the Philippines in Diliman in 1966. She then joined the Mindanao State University in Marawi City, southern Philippines where she taught undergraduate biology and zoology courses for almost 10 years. Growing up among various species of tropical fruit trees in her hometown in Mindanao, her interest in trees, forests and the environment continued through ecology courses in college and was reinforced by a 1970 OTS Tropical Biology course in Costa Rica (for the M.A. Zoology degree at Indiana University) and the seminal 1972 U.N. Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm.

Due to deteriorating peace-and-order conditions in Mindanao, Jurgenne and her growing family fled to relative peace and quiet in the Visayas, where she did aquaculture research in the newly-established SEAFDEC/AQD in Tigbauan, Iloilo on the island of Panay. Her early studies focused on penaeid shrimp aquaculture, in particular, broodstock development and pond grow-out culture systems. Noting negative environmental and socioeconomic impacts of shrimp farming, she was among the first to ring warning bells on the perils of modern aquaculture. Hence her shift in research interests to mangrove-friendly aquaculture and the mangrove-penaeid shrimp connection, the latter forming the thesis for a Ph.D. in Marine Science at U.P. Diliman. Almost four decades of academic and research experience have produced more than 40 scientific articles and review papers in journals (including Science and Nature) and proceedings, and 20 manuals, book chapters, technical reports and other publications as senior author, and another 20 papers as co-author. She has also attended some 65 national and international conferences and workshops on aquaculture, fisheries, mangroves, and the environment. She has done consultancy work (e.g., for the UN-FAO/UNDP, Asian Development Bank) and has reviewed research proposals and scientific manuscripts (for the journals Aquaculture, Journal of the World Aquaculture Society, Marine Biology, Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, among others).

She was elected to the membership of international honor societies such as the Phi Kappa Phi, Phi Sigma, Pi Gamma Mu and the Swedish Royal Academy on Agriculture and Forestry (December 2002), awarded the Philippine Dr. Elvira Tan Memorial Award for Best Paper in Aquaculture in 1988, 1994, 2000 and 2004, and conferred a Doctorate of Philosophy honoris causa by the Faculty of Science of Stockholm University in September 2004. In 2005 she became a Pew Fellow in Marine Conservation, which is the fields leading award.

Approaching the end of an active and fruitful career in science, she takes pride in helping mold younger generations of Filipino scientists, and in pushing the frontiers of aquaculture and mangrove research through her studies on the penaeid prawns and shrimps, most especially the giant tiger prawn Penaeus monodon, and on mangroves. But the biologist in her takes greater pride in the rearing (with much more than loads of help from husband Nick) of four offspring, now all grown up: Yasmin who holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Marine Fisheries, Nikos a budding writer-cum-law student, Karlo finishing his masters degree in Marine Chemistry at the U.P. Marine Science Institute, and Jorge on a graduate program in International Development at the International University of Japan. Now a grandmother, she dreams of walking her two grandchildren in a few years time through some of the mangroves that her research and advocacy will help to conserve in Panay Island.