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Dr. Young-Je Park

Young-Je Park is a Principal Research Scientist at the Korean Institute of Ocean Science and Technology (KIOST), Busan, South Korea. He received his Ph.D. degree in Physics from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) for his dissertation on a Lidar system for detection of atmospheric trace gases. Since 1998 when he joined EORC of JAXA as a member of ADEOS-II/GLI algorithm integration team, ocean color remote sensing became his primary research area. His work experience covers validation, algorithm development and applications for ocean color satellite data. He has worked on validation and applications of MERIS products in the North Sea and adjacent seas at the Royal Belgian Institute for Natural Sciences (RBINS), on applications of MODIS imagery to coastal waters, and on high resolution imagery such as QuickBird for mapping shallow waters at CSIRO (Australia). Since he joined KIOST in 2011, his main research activities are related to the Geostationary Ocean Color Imager (GOCI), an ocean color instrument operated on a geostationary orbit providing hourly images during daytime around north-east Asian seas around Korea. He is the PI of GOCI application projects that aim at exploitation of GOCI images for tackling environmental issues around Korean seas. He was also involved in development of the follow-on satellite instrument; GOCI-II, planned to be launched in early 2020, and is leading a project to build a ground system for operation of GOCI-II. He has been involved in international activities, serving as chair of the local organizing committee of PORSEC (Pan Ocean Remote Sensing Conference) 2018, a member of IOCCG Executive Committee and a member of the scientific program committee for IOCS-2019.
Title of Talk: Looking back GOCI experience towards the upcoming GOCI-II period and beyond.

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Dr. Chuanmin Hu

Chuanmin Hu received a BS degree in physics from the University of Science and Technology of China in 1989 and a PhD degree in physics (environmental optics) from the University of Miami (Florida, USA) in 1997. He is currently a professor of optical oceanography at the University of South Florida (USA), who also directs the Optical Oceanography Lab. He uses laboratory, field, and remote sensing techniques to study marine algal blooms (harmful and non-harmful, macroalgae and microalgae), oil spills, coastal and inland water quality, and global changes. His expertise is in the development of remote sensing algorithms and data products as well as application of these data products to address earth science questions. He has authored and co-authored >250 refereed articles, many of which have been highlighted on journal covers and by AGU and NASA. His research has led to the establishment of a Virtual Antenna System to generate and distribute customized data products in near real-time, from which unique coastal observing systems have been developed to address specific monitoring and research needs. These include a Virtual Buoy System (VBS ) to monitor coastal and estuarine water quality, an Integrated Redtide Information System (IRIS) to provide near real-time information on harmful algal blooms, and a Sargassum Watch System (SaWS ) to combine remote sensing and numerical modeling to track macroalgae. Between 2009 and 2014 he served as a topical editor on ocean optics and ocean color remote sensing at Applied Optics, and between 2015 and 2017 he served as a chief editor at Remote Sensing of Environment.
Title of Talk: Rising green tides and golden tides: An oceanographic regime shift?

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Dr. Griet Neukermans

Griet Neukermans is an optical oceanographer with fundamental and applied expertise in remote and in situ optical sensing of marine particles. Throughout her career she embraced a wide range of research topics in marine optics, biogeochemistry, phytoplankton biogeography and climate change. Her scientific contributions include pioneering work on remote sensing of water quality from geostationary optical satellites, investigating relationships between (hyperspectral) optical properties and characteristics of marine particles in natural waters, theoretical modeling of optical properties of phytoplankton, bio-optical measurement protocols and uncertainties, and investigations on the poleward expansion of temperate phytoplankton into the Arctic. In recent years, she developed a particular interest in calcifying phytoplankton (coccolithophores) and their climate relevance. Griet received her MSc. in Applied Mathematics and her MSc. in Marine Ecology from Brussels University in Belgium and obtained her Ph.D. in Physics from Lille University in France in 2012. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Scripps Institution of Oceanography/University of California San Diego, held a Banting postdoctoral fellowship from the government of Canada at Laval University in Québec, and currently holds a Marie Sklodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellowship at the Oceanography Laboratory of Sorbonne University in Villefranche-sur-Mer. Griet has led multidisciplinary field campaigns, her scientific contributions have been internationally recognized through various awards, and she serves as Associate Editor for Frontiers in Marine Science. See https://grietneukermans.weebly.com/ for further information.
Title of Talk: Optical properties and remote sensing of coccolithophores: recent advances and selected applications

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Dr. Curtis Mobley

Curtis Mobley has had a 40-year career in optical oceanography.  The widely-used HydroLight software, the textbook Light and Water: Radiative Transfer in Natural Waters, and the Ocean Optics Web Book (www.oceanopticsbook.info) are the best-known products of his efforts.  His papers have been cited over 10,000 times.  Early in his career, he was a Fulbright Fellow to Germany, and he has held both regular (at the NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Lab) and senior (at the Jet Propulsion Lab) National Research Council Resident Research Associateships.  He has worked at a number of universities and companies, and he was the second Program Manager of the Ocean Optics program at the Office of Naval Research.  Since 1997 he has been the Vice President for Science at Sequoia Scientific, Inc.   He was the 2012 Distinguished Alumnus for the School of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Maryland, and he received the 2016 Jerlov Award, in part for “applications of radiative transfer theory to problems in optical oceanography.”  When not doing radiative transfer theory, he can usually be found in a sea kayak—most recently on a 30 day expedition along the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula.
Title of Talk:  The Evolution of Radiative Transfer Theory

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Dr. Jianping Li

Jianping Claude Li is an optical instrument developer and physicist. He obtained his BSc and M.E degrees in optics and optical engineering, both at Shandong University, China. After he completed his Ph.D. in physics with Dr. Robert K.Y. Chan at Hong Kong Baptist University in 2010, he stayed in the Advanced Optical Instrument Lab of Physics Department working as research assistant, then lecturer and finally research assistant professor for six years. Since October 2016, he moved to Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology of Chinese Academy of Sciences, where he is working in the Center for Optoelectronics Engineering and Technology as an associate professor. Dr. Jianping Li is one of the inventors of light-sheet fluorescence imaging flow cytometer, which is a new technology for high-throughput phytoplankton analysis. His research interests include optical spectral imaging and flow imaging technologies and their applications in biology, chemistry, material and marine sciences. His recent work has focused on developing field-applicable imaging systems for plankton studies.
Title of Talk: How can imaging flow cytometry serve ocean color science?

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Dr. Sandy Thomalla

Sandy Thomalla is a principal scientist at the Southern Ocean Carbon and Climate Observatory (SOCCO) at the CSIR, in Cape Town, South Africa. She obtained her PhD in 2007 from the University of Cape Town in association with the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton. Her early research focused on understanding the biological carbon pump through measurements of primary production (14C and 15N) and carbon export (234Th/238U disequilibrium), while her postdoctoral research characterised the seasonal cycle of chlorophyll in the Southern Ocean using SeaWiFS to provide a more dynamic understanding of phytoplankton phenology based on underlying physical drivers rather than climatological means. This research continues to play an important role in influencing SOCCO’s approach to advancing their understanding of the Southern Ocean carbon – climate system. Sandy’s current and future research has expanded into the development and application of ecosystem-appropriate, well-characterised products that translate ocean colour (and in situ bio-optical measurements) into carbon biogeochemistry (phytoplankton biomass, community structure and physiology) allowing new insight into ecosystem function. A key focus is on assessing event, seasonal and inter-annual variability in ecosystem physical drivers and their biogeochemical response, in order to better understand the potential for carbon sequestration at a regional scale. The knowledge and experience gained from her years of research in phytoplankton productivity and carbon export amalgamates well with her expansion into bio-optical approaches that include in situ high-resolution estimates from autonomous platforms such as bio-Argo floats and gliders. Although a jack of all trades and a master of none, Sandy has an unusual combination of experience at the interface of observations, autonomous technology, and ocean colour remote sensing, all centred on phytoplankton primary production and carbon export. Sandy would like to think that this strange multidisciplinarity might place her in a unusual position to address the complex problem of understanding the climate sensitivities of the Southern Ocean biological carbon pump. 
Title of Talk: Do small scales make a big difference? Building a South African Southern Ocean Carbon – Climate research capability (the journey, direction and science highlights).

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Dr. Atsushi Matsuoka

Atsushi Matsuoka is the lead of the remote sensing group at Takuvik Joint International Laboratory (CNRS-ULaval), Québec City, Canada. He received a doctorate in the fields of satellite oceanography and marine bio-optics from Hokkaido University (Japan), and conducted post-doctoral research at Laboratoire d’Océanographie de Villefranche/Université de Paris 6 (France), plus at Takuvik Joint International Laboratory (Canada). Since July 2015, he has been leading Takuvik’s remote sensing group. His research activities extend from examining intricate in situ relationships between optical properties and microbes/phytoplankton to monitor much broader scale global climate change from space. His most significant research contributions include establishing fundamental relationships among optical properties and constituents observed in the ocean based on in situ observations, introducing these relationships into a radiative transfer model, and developing appropriate algorithms and applying them to  satellite data to retrieve and monitor geophysical variables with known uncertainties. In recent years, his research has further expanded to monitor carbon fluxes from permafrost thaw. When combined with a numerical model, this knowledge will be particularly useful to assess the global impact of this phenomenon on the atmospheric CO2 budget. Due to his expertise in a variety of remote sensing applications, he has had the opportunity to be involved in a number of national and international projects including the European NUNATARYUK project, in the framework of Horizon 2020 where he is a Co-PI of a work package. He is also actively involved in ocean colour satellite missions and is a PI on the Japanese space agency (JAXA)’s GCOM-C/SGLI project.

Title of Talk: Ocean Colour Remote Sensing in Polar Seas

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Alejandro Clément

Most of Alejandro Clément’s career has been in the private sector, but he also carries out applied research on harmful algal blooms (HAB), fjord oceanography, bio-optics and more recently, testing the HABf  index, a novel metric to improve communication procedures and early warning of complex biological events.  Alejandro was born in southern Chile and obtained his marine biology degree from Universidad de Concepcion. During this time he began studying HABs and obtained his first job at Universidad de Los Lagos, in Puerto Montt, Chile, where he initiated a branch of marine phytoplankton research.  Following this, he was hired at Universidad de Magallanes, Instituto de la Patagonia to participate in the red tide monitoring program in Chile’s Patagonian fjords.  He then decided to further his career by obtaining a Master’s Degree from Oregon State University in 1988, studying the use of ocean colour remote sensing data (CZCS) as a tool for monitoring HABs in coastal mid-latitudes. i.e., optically-complex waters with intense aquaculture activities. After a massive HAB outbreak in spring of 1988, the Chilean salmon industry contracted Alejandro to design, develop and run a Phytoplankton Monitoring Program, which was one of the first such programs in South America.  Alejandro resolved to move away from academia into the private sector in 1998, and founded Plancton Andino (www.plancton.cl) a leading company in southern Chile addressing environmental consulting, operational oceanography and R&D, specifically focusing on HAB monitoring, with a team of 21 staff (76 % female). The team uses traditional microscopic analysis in three branch labs: Puerto Varas, Castro and Coyhaique, but more recently they  have included bio-optical techniques, such as absorption, backscattering, Chl-a data, algal cell detection and quantification with a flow cytometer (FlowCam),  photochemical parameters with FRRf3, and remote sensing data using both the WISP-3 portable water quality spectrometer as well as satellite platforms (VIIRS- Suomi NPP).  All these data are compiled, processed and provided to aquaculture industries and authorities via business intelligence and cloud computing.
Title of Talk:  HABs, ocean color remote sensing, bio-optical monitoring in fjords and aquaculture activities