In a time of social distancing, the AIR Centre is bringing people back together by launching a series of online networking meetings that will take place every Friday, from 1pm to 2 pm UTC. During these relaxing Networking Fridays, researchers, technology innovators, representatives of multilateral organizations, government officials, and social entrepreneurs will present to and discuss with the audience their current work and, most importantly, explore ways of future collaboration. Our goal is to keep our network active, connected and informed of interesting activities going on around the Atlantic region. Let’s inspire each other and thrive through all this together.

On May 22nd, we traveled to Oporto, Portugal to meet Isabel Sousa Pinto, member of the Board of Directors of CIIMAR – Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research and Co-Chair of GEO MBON – GEO Marine Biodiversity Observation Network. Isabel presented CIIMAR’s  most interesting projects and also showed how us GEO MBON is helping us to understand how and why life in the ocean is changing and how local changes relate to changes taking place over larger regions. This session was moderated by Sheila Heymans, Executive Director of the European Marine Board and Co-chair of the Steering Group and member of the Advisory Committee of EOOS – European Ocean Observation System.

Prof Isabel Sousa Pinto has a PhD in Marine Biology (phycology) from the UCSB, USA. She is a Professor at the University of Porto and Head of the Aquatic Biodiversity and Conservation group at Interdisciplinary Centre for Marine and Environmental Research (CIIMAR). She is also member of its Board of Directors. Her main research has been on marine biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, and how is impacted by climate change, invasive species and other anthropogenic drivers. She has a particular focus on the seaweed flora as well as on algal ecophysiology, cultivation and promotion of its sustainable use and was member of the POGO working group “Planning the implementation of a global long-term observing and data sharing strategy for macroalgal communities”. She is also working on the science-policy – society interfaces and on promoting ocean literacy.  She is serving in different European and International steering Committees as Euromarine, European Ocean Observation System (EOOS) and AtlantOS to develop the biodiversity component of the Ocean Observations and its integration with the other observation components and with the European Marine Board in to identify gaps in biological observations and produce recommendations to fill them. At global level she is the co-chair of MBON – Marine Biodiversity Observation Network from GEO BON.

She was part of the Portuguese delegation to the Convention on Biological Diversity (2006-2011) and has been since working with IPBES – the Intergovernamental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, was the Portuguese Representative in this platform until 2018, when was elected to its Multidisciplinary Expert Panel, a panel that supervises the scientific work of the Platform, becoming later also co-chair of its Knowledge and Data task force. Besides more than 180 scientific publications, she was a Coordinating Lead Author for the Regional Assessemnt of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in Europe and Central Asia of IPBES.

We will continue with the Networking Fridays during the months of May, June and July. More information about future sessions as well as presentations and videos from previous sessions can be found here. Twitter Hashtag: #netfridays. Expect some very exciting afternoons, or mornings or evenings, depending on where you are…

If you need any additional information please send an email to Jose Luiz Moutinho.