WHO WE ARE

Rosslyn loves nature, and has always been inspired by the ocean. She is an avid traveller with happy memories of rock-pooling on Scottish Islands, whale watching, penguin spotting in the Falklands and watching baby turtles dash towards the ocean during a stunning Ascension sunrise.

A zoology graduate, specialising in marine biology, Rosslyn spent 20 years in the corporate world focused on strategy execution and change management. The volunteering she did with Sharklab Malta and the Edinburgh Shoreline project opened her eyes to the impact that marine conservation work could have. She has supported the environment sector since, allowing her to make best use of her experience and networks, alongside a life-long knowledge and passion for nature conservation.

Her current roles include Board Member of Sharklab Malta, Steering Committee member for the Edinburgh Shoreline project, and Project Manager for a proposed combined Shoreline and Heriot-Watt project in the Forth. In all roles she aims is to create opportunities for people from all walks of life to enjoy our beautiful oceans and participate in their conservation.

She is delighted to be joining the Project Seagrass Board of Trustees. As a shark lover, she knows how important seagrass is as a safe environment for all marine creatures, having seen a rescued Nursehound shelter in Neptune grass (Posidonia oceanica) in Malta. She was also fascinated to learn that the gaels in Scotland used seagrass to thatch their roofs as it was stronger than straw!

Growing up along the coast of Pen Llŷn, North Wales has meant that the marine environment has always been a big part of Jake’s life. His passion for the marine environment led him to study Marine Biology at Bangor University, where he’s been part of numerous projects to better understand a range of marine species and habitats from seagrass to sharks. In 2016, Jake joined Project Seagrass as an Intern where he assisted in data collection and spreading awareness of seagrass in North Wales. Following the internship, he continued to work closely with Project Seagrass as a regional ambassador.

His passion for marine life, exploring the underwater world and technology doesn’t stop there. As a professional scuba diver and underwater videographer (JDScuba), he reveals what’s found beneath the waves to wider audiences via social media and TV. Bringing together his enjoyment of research and providing engaging content to bridge the two areas together.

He is honoured to be joining the Project Seagrass Board of Trustees. He hopes to bring his hours of knowledge gained from spending time amongst the seagrass leaves, experience of media and use of different technologies to help in engaging wider audiences in finding out more about the importance of Seagrass habitats and the valuable groundbreaking work carried out by Project Seagrass.

Mike’s early career aspiration was to have a job that required wellies, so it wasn’t too surprising that he ended up with an ecology degree and boots to suit. After an early spell in the water industry, Mike’s career has been split between forestry, countryside access and environmental consulting, with a recent focus on environmental impact assessments.

In 1992 he set up, and still helps to run, a volunteer conservation group managing an award-winning local nature reserve in Oxfordshire. Mike hopes that his long experience of working with volunteers, of practical conservation and environmental projects, and hundreds of grant applications will be of value to Project Seagrass.

Picking seagrass spathes by torchlight at 3am in water barely 4″ deep, Mike was surprised by a matchbox-sized creature repeatedly knocking his searching fingers. A plucky, over-ambitious ‘squidlet’ was letting Mike know who’s home this was. Young, squid became a regular delight during early morning seed collection.

Bio coming soon…

Originally from South Devon, UK, Louise loved growing up by the sea and is now living on the South Wales coastline. Louise brings her experience of fundraising, passion for empowering communities and love of the natural world to the role of Fundraising and Relationship Manager.  Having worked in the third sector for a number of years, Louise has joined Project Seagrass at a crucial point in the organisation’s growth and will focus on nurturing and developing relationships whilst also cultivating new opportunities.

Louise is always keen to connect with supporters and donors so please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Bethan first joined Project Seagrass in her ‘Professional Training Year’ in 2018 whilst studying for her Bachelors at Cardiff University. She has since returned as a graduate and is working as Conservation Officer, responsible for marketing and communications. Bethan is currently writing her own paper and is particularly interested in the impacts of human activity on the environment and what can be done to stop and reverse these impacts.

Danny joined Project Seagrass in June 2021 and holds a bachelor’s degree in Physical Geography and a master’s degree in Geographic Information and Climate Change, both from Swansea University. With his background in geography, GIS and species distribution mapping, Danny is currently leading and assisting on seagrass mapping projects to aid with future conservation and restoration work. Danny is passionate about climate science, research and policy and the subsequent climate impacts on human society, biodiversity and global biomes.

Stijn is an interdisciplinary marine ecologist from The Netherlands and works on the restoration of seagrass meadows in North Wales. Studying marine ecosystems during and after his MSc in Ecology & Evolution, his enthusiasm for restoration was sparked when he found himself restoring coral reefs in the Maldives. Upon realising that effectively restoring ecosystems requires knowledge beyond biology, he returned to university to obtain an Erasmus Mundus MSc in Environmental Sciences, Policy, and Management, and developed a thesis on engaging local communities in European restoration projects. Working shoulder to shoulder in a diverse team, he is eager to restore seagrasses for the benefit of people, nature, and climate. Stijn is a PADI scuba instructor and, when not working, you will probably find him either cycling, hiking, or enjoying jazz.

Esther works within the core Restoration Forth team to restore seagrass meadows in the Firth of Forth and explores further seagrass restoration opportunities across Scotland. She has been working on seagrass since 2014 and is interested in the impact of anthropogenic nutrient pollution and eutrophication on seagrass meadows and their ecosystem services. After investigating tropical seagrasses in the Caribbean in her MSc thesis and in the South China Sea in her PhD, both at the Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research and the University of Bremen, Germany, she will now apply her knowledge to restore temperate seagrasses. She has a lot of fieldwork experience and is a certified European Scientific Diver.

Sam works at the forefront of Seagrass Ocean Rescue as the technical lead, pulling on ten years of experience working in conservation, he has worked as part of the core team responsible for planting 1 million seeds in Dale, West Wales. He has a BSc in Marine Biology from Bangor University as well as a MSc in Marine Environmental Protection. Having worked as the Benthic Marine Biology Technician on the SEACAMS2 project, Sam formed part of the team that developed BoSS lines, the biodegradable restoration method used in Seagrass Ocean Rescue. Sam is also a qualified PADI Divemaster and is currently training to become a Project Manager.

Eve initially joined Project Seagrass in 2019 as a volunteer, later joining the Seagrass Ocean Rescue team as a Marine Laboratory Assistant, working on the WWF restoration in Dale and assisting in outreach. She has a BSc in Geography from Swansea University, where she began the crossover to working in aquatic habitats, studying the effects of deforestation in Borneo and agricultural runoff in South Wales on freshwater macroinvertebrates. Returning to the team in late 2020, she is now working as a Project Support Officer. Eve is currently undertaking her scuba training with BSAC.

Emma started working for Project Seagrass as a volunteer, before joining as a Marine Biology Assistant in June 2021. In her role she has been conducting research into how seagrass health is affected by water quality and nutrients as well as taking part in fieldwork and outreach. Emma has a BSc degree in Biological Sciences and a MSc in Marine Systems and Policies from the University of Edinburgh.

Issy joined Projects Seagrass in 2019 as part of her year in industry at Swansea University. She helped on the Dale restoration project and was involved in lots of outreach events. During her final year at Swansea University Issy looked at how local climatic factors affected seagrass meadows in England. In line with her passion for connecting communities back to nature using conservation work, Issy’s role in Project Seagrass is community engagement officer.

Aitor lives on Orkney where he works as a fisher hand diving for scallops. RJ started working with Aitor on a Marine Scotland funded project in 2020 where together they started the process of mapping seagrass meadows within the Orkney archipelago. As both a drone pilot and SCUBA Instructor Aitor has since been involved in two NatureScot funded projects, the first relating to the a genetic connectivity study of Scottish eelgrass (Z.marina) meadows in 2021, and the second in 2022 involving an investigation into the leaf chemistry (Carbon, Nitrogen and Phosphorous) of eelgrass at 6 sites on Orkney. 

Chiara is a marine biologist with over 15 years’ experience of coastal and marine ecological survey and research including boat-based marine mammal, fisheries and passive acoustic survey, SCUBA and snorkel surveys of temperate coastal habitats (mainly seagrass) as well as tropical coral reef.  Interests include seagrass ecology, benthic and fish ID, acoustic monitoring of cetaceans, BRUVs, marine conservation, monitoring and management in specific reference to the marine renewable energy sector. Chiara has recently finished a part-time PhD looking at environmental drivers of change in seagrass meadows alongside her full-time job at SEACAMS2 at Swansea University.  More recently she has been working on habitat suitability modelling (HSM) in collaboration with Project Seagrass for Sky Ocean Rescue and WWF, Natural England and now as part of the SMMR ReSOW project using HSM for aiding decision making for seagrass restoration sites.

A multidisciplinary scientist with over 10 years in academia in coastal and marine research including ecological survey work. Previously working on the successful EU-funded SEACAMS and SEACAMS2 R&D projects, research has centred around monitoring and management of ecology around MRE devices. Research and expertise includes; acoustic monitoring of cetaceans including towed arrays, marine mammal and seabird surveys, fish surveys, tracking and tagging, sediment and heavy metal dynamics. With a CAA approved UAV pilot license much of the research focuses on drone-related surveys particularly seagrass surveys. Also working alongside Project Seagrass and Ørsted on seagrass restoration and conservation projects and delivery. Within ReSOW Anouska will lead the fisheries supporting and provisioning services which aims to monetise seagrass support to fisheries using a fish residence index approach. Field campaigns in identified UK coastal seagrass restoration areas will collect data to add to existing databases to develop the SRI. Anouska will also assist on Habitat Suitability Modelling (HSM) to develop a UK wide assessment of seagrass.

Sebastian is a Marine Scientist at the University of Edinburgh with over 15 years of experience investigating the impacts of man-made stressors and climate change to marine ecosystems. This has included tropical and temperate systems, and work from research vessels, SCUBA diving, and snorkelling. In a time of rapidly changing oceans, we need to understand how ecosystems are changing, what we can do to mitigate this, and what this will mean to how we interact with and manage them in the future. To understand how ecosystems will change, we need to understand their environmental limits now and potential to grow under different conditions. This will not only impact where they can grow, but directly inform restoration efforts.

Jim leads the Spatial & Population Ecology Research Group (SpacePop) at Swansea University and has over twenty years of academic experience researching population and community ecology. He has a degree from Oxford University and PhD from Imperial College. Following postdoctoral research (Imperial College and the Zoological Society of London) and a Wellcome Trust funded Fellowship (Warwick University) working on population dynamics using computers and laboratory experiments, Jim now makes extensive use of field-based model systems to understand population dynamics in a natural setting. Many of Jim’s research interests focus on ‘coastal resilience’, which he explores across a wide range of species, from seagrass to seals. He is an advocate of inter-disciplinary research, working with mathematicians, coastal scientists, and engineers. Outside of work, Jim is a keen diver and BSAC advanced instructor.

Emma has just moved to Swansea University from the University of Sussex where she was an independent research fellow. She has 20 years’ experience working with fish, in particular developmental genetics and cell biology. She has a degree and masters from Kings College London and a PhD awarded from UCL, although based at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge. Her main research interest is in hearing and balance using fish as a model species with research encompassing genetics, cell biology and behavioural sensory neuroscience. Outside of work Emma is a keen sea swimmer, snorkeller and diver and has been involved with volunteer seagrass surveys for over 20 years.

Coming soon…

Bio coming soon…

Storm is a BSc Marine Biology student at Swansea University, currently undertaking her ‘Year in Industry’ with Project Seagrass’.

Bio coming soon…