Main speaker

Cristina González-Haro

Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM) – Barcelona Expert Center (BEC), España

Dr. Cristina González-Haro has a multidisciplinary background, having studied Telecommunications Engineering, having specialized in ocean remote sensing during her master studies, and acquiring knowledge of physical oceanography during her PhD. She is currently a researcher at the Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM) in the Barcelona Expert Center (BEC) group.

Her research activity is focused on ocean remote sensing, with emphasis on the exploitation of remote sensing data to study and investigate the dynamics of the ocean surface layers. Her current activities focus on the development and evaluation of ocean surface salinity products from SMOS mission observations and their exploitation to reconstruct surface current velocity fields from synergy with other observations. Since 2022, she is a member of the international scientific committee “Group of High-Resolution Sea Surface Temperature” (GHRSS) that promotes the monitoring of sea surface temperature (SST) from satellites, and includes the main space agencies and producers of SST observations.

Panelists

Enrique Álvarez

OceanPrediction DCC Technical coordinator at Mercator Ocean

Dr. Enrique Alvarez has a long established career in ocean modelling. He is an expert in time series analysis and developing tools used to analyse ocean data measurements from Spanish Deep-Water Network. He has participated and coordinated several highly successful national and international projects and initiatives, including MyOcean, Copernicus IBI-MFC system and the ESEOO regional ocean forecasting system.

Dr. Alvarez has contributed to over 100 peer-reviewed publications on this topic. He is also the Director of ‘Decade Collaborative Centre for Ocean Prediction (DCC-OP)’ which plays a crucial role in facilitating collaboration between Ocean Decade actions that are related to ocean prediction modelling, critical to achieving the goals of the Decade.

Enrique is vice-chair of an ‘Expert Team on Operational Ocean Forecasting Systems (ETOOFS)’, which has recently published a guide on ‘Implementing Operational Ocean Monitoring and Forecasting Systems’. This guide provides an overview of the entire value chain of an operational ocean monitoring and forecasting system and presents international standards and best practices for setting up such a service.

Isabel Caballero de Fruto

Researcher at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones (CSIC), Spain

Researcher at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Spain, since 2010. Since then, her main line of research has focused to a large extent on the application of remote sensing tools for the study of coasts from a multidisciplinary and comprehensive approach. This work is based on the development of new methodologies, through the use of medium and high spatial resolution satellites, to advance the monitoring of these complex and dynamic regions.

Since 2016 she has a postdoctoral contract at the CSIC to lead a project of the European Space Agency (ESA). In 2017 she obtained an award from the US Academy of Sciences, Medicine and Engineering to work for 2 years in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). During this period, she led an individual project to develop coastal bottom mapping tools through the European Copernican Earth Observation program. She is currently Principal Investigator of the Sen2Coast project, funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation within the State R&D&I program oriented to the Challenges of Society for young researchers. She has received multiple awards and lecturer in dozens of Congresses of high international impact.

Author or co-author of 40 international publications in journals indexed in the JCR-SCI. In 2020 she was invited by the European Commission to the COPERNICUS4REGIONS debate held in the European Parliament in Brussels. She has participated in the research team of 25 regional, national, European and international projects.

Jorge Paredes

Centro de Investigación en Ciencias de Información Geoespacial (CentroGeo), Mexico

PhD in Water Sciences with emphasis on Water Resources Management, Master in Water Sciences with emphasis on Underground Hydrology and Bachelor of Geography and Spatial Planning, by the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico. He is a member of the Mexican National Research System.

He has taught Bachelor’s, Master’s and PhD courses in Spatial Analysis, Earth Sciences, Water Sciences, among others. He has also participated in various research projects at the national and state levels, both for educational institutions and for government agencies in various parts of the Mexican Republic.

His research lines are: Spatial Analysis, Availability Study, Prospective and Management of Water Resources and Underground Hydrology. She is a member of the CONACyT Mexico Research and Research Program and is commissioned to the Center for Geospatial Information Sciences Research (CentroGeo), where she is currently coordinator of the PhD program in Geospatial Information Sciences.

Luciano Pezzi

National Institute for Space Research (INPE)

He is a Meteorologist with a PhD in Physical Oceanography (University of Southampton, UK). He is Senior Scientist at the Earth Observation and Geoinformatics Division (DIOTG) in the General Coordination of Earth Sciences (CGCT) at INPE. He received the titles of “Honorary Hydrographer” (2012) and Friend of the Navy (2021) from the Brazilian Navy. He also works as a professor in the graduate programs in Remote Sensing (PGSER) and in Meteorology (PGMet), both at INPE. He was Deputy Head of the Remote Sensing Division (DSR) of OBT/INPE from 2013 to 2015 and of the INPE’s Antarctic Project (2007-2018).

He currently coordinates the Laboratory of Ocean and Atmosphere Studies (LOA/CGCT/INPE). Internationally, he is a member of the Scientific Steering Committee (SSC) of the Southern Ocean Observing System (SOOS). Represents SOOS in the Southern Ocean Regional Panel (SORP) of CLIVAR/Clic/SCAR. Luciano Pezzi represents INPE in the “Alianza Regional en Oceanografía para el Atlántico Sudoccidental Superior y Tropical (OCEATLAN)”. He is a member of the scientific steering committee of the Brazilian Earth System Model for Ocean-land-Atmosphere prediction (MONAN).

He works mainly on the following topics: Ocean-Atmosphere Interaction, Regional and Global Coupled Modeling, Seasonal Climate Forecasting, Observational and Numerical Climate Studies, having published several articles in specialized journals and annals of events. He was Assistant Editor of the Brazilian Journal of Meteorology (RBMet) from 2008 to 2016. Co-author of “The Southern Ocean Observing System 2021-2025 Science and Implementation Plan”.

Juan Darío Restrepo Ángel

Profesor Emérito
Escuela de Ciencias Aplicadas e Ingenería
Director científico Proyecto BASIC
https://www.basic-cartagena.org
Universidad EAFIT, Medellín, Colombia

Juan Darío Restrepo holds a PhD from the Marine Science Program at University of South Carolina. Following on from his PhD, Dr Restrepo has continued to carry out research in environmental oceanography of deltas, estuaries, and coastal lagoons waters, with focus on the factors controlling water discharge, sediment load, and dissolved load to the ocean from the Pacific and Caribbean rivers of Colombia. His research focuses on improving the understanding of the natural and anthropogenic causes affecting denudation rates and sediment transport to the Caribbean Sea from the largest fluvial system of Colombia, the Magdalena River. He has been head of the Magdalena River Science Initiative in Colombia, and is currently a full professor of Geological Sciences at EAFIT University, Colombia.

Professor Restrepo has been involved as a resource scientist for the sub-programs of LOICZ-IGBP Basins, SAmBas (South American Basins) and CariBas (Caribbean Basins), as a member of the Scientific Steering Committees of LOICZ-IGBP and Colciencias (Colombia) in the Marine Science Program, and also, as a consultant of the International Water Project (United Nations University and Global Environmental Fund-GEF). He is one of the co-authors in the Coastal Communities and Systems and Caribbean Assessment Chapters of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) and a visiting professor of the European Union in the Erasmus Mundus master program “Water and Coastal Management”. He has also been a visiting professor at University of Texas at Austin (2011-2016), a visiting scientist at CSDMS University of Colorado at Boulder (2009-present), member of the Colombian Academy of Sciences (since 2014), and resource scientist of the UNESCO International Sediment Initiative-ISI.

Recently, Professor Restrepo was awarded with Mention of Honor in Environment and Sustainable Development Award of Colombia “Alejandro Ángel Escobar” for his research on the IDRC-International Development Research Center of Canada- EAFIT Project: “BASIC: Basin Sea Interactions with Communities, Cartagena-Colombia and as Professor Emeritus at EAFIT University.