Dr. Christelle Jozet-Alves is a lecturer in Animal Behaviour at the University of Caen in France. After completing a PhD on spatial memory in cuttlefish, she has joined the University of Edinburgh to work on the neural substrates of spatial memory in birds. Since 2009, her research primarily focuses on cephalopods cognitive abilities in the team Cognitive Neuroethology of Cephalopods of the EthoS’ lab (University of Caen, France). She is particularly interested in the Evolution of complex cognitive abilities, such as source and episodic memories. Using a comparative framework, she aims at shed light on how cognitive abilities might be mediated by entirely different neural circuitries in distantly-related species.
Professor Margaret McFall-Ngai’s research group studies the role of beneficial bacteria in health using the squid-vibrio model. This symbiosis offers the opportunity to address questions concerning the key elements that drive animal-bacterial associations. The work to date on this system has demonstrated that the basic functions governing animal-bacterial interactions are highly conserved. In addition, discoveries in the system have provided, and promise to continue to provide, valuable insight into the biology of more complex systems, such as the form and function of the human microbiota. McFall-Ngai has also been heavily involved in promoting microbiology as the cornerstone of the field of biology. She was a Moore Scholar at CalTech (2011-2013) and a Guggenheim fellow (2010), and is a member of the American Academy of Microbiology (2002), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2011), and the National Academy of Sciences (2014).
Dr. Hans-Otto Pörtner received his PhD and habilitated in Animal Physiology at Münster and Düsseldorf Universities. As a Research and then Heisenberg Fellow of the German Research Council he worked at Dalhousie and Acadia Universities, Nova Scotia, Canada and at the Lovelace Medical Foundation, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA, before he became Professor and Head of Integrative Ecophysiology at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Bremerhaven, Germany. He has established theory and evidence on effects of climate warming, ocean acidification, and hypoxia on marine animals and ecosystems. His efforts focus on linking biogeography and ecosystem functioning to molecular, biochemical and physiological mechanisms shaping organism tolerance and performance. After his earlier contributions (as Lead Author and Coordinating Lead Author) to the 4th and 5th assessment cycles of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) he was elected Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group II for AR6 in October 2015. He is an elected member of the European Academy of Sciences, the German Advisory Council on Global Change and a Clarivate Analytics highly cited researcher (Cross-Field) 2018 onward.
Professor Brad Seibel’s research employs a unique suite of field and laboratory techniques and approaches to assess the ecological consequences of climate change, including ocean acidification, deoxygenation and warming. He carries out broad comparative physiology studies to determine the limits to evolution and ecology. His studies compare organisms across size, depth, latitudinal, physical and chemical gradients and phylogenetic lines, from microzooplankton to macronekton, ctenophores to fishes, from the poles to the equator and from the abyssal plains to the ocean surface. He strives to integrate across levels of organization, from mitochondria to ecosystems. He focuses on the physiology of individual species and what this can teach us about their origin, behavior, ecology, diversity and the ecosystems in which they live.