Steering Committee
FRANCES GULLAND
Frances is a veterinarian who has worked with stranded marine mammals for over 25 years in California, USA. She is currently a Research Associate at the University of California, Davis, USA, and serves as Commissioner on the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission.
ASHLEY BARRATCLOUGH
Ashley is a Conservation Medicine Veterinarian at the National Marine Mammal Foundation. She focuses on international cetacean and sirenian research and stranding response through the National Marine Mammal Foundation's Operation Grace.
ANDREW BROWNLOW
Andrew is a veterinary epidemiologist and pathologist and has led the Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme UK since 2009. He is a senior lecturer at the University of Glasgow, UK and is a member of the IWC expert panel for strandings. He is a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellow for 2020/21 for work on optimizing marine stranding surveillance networks.
ELSBURGH “TRES” OCTAVIUS CLARKE III
Tres is the Director of Animal Health and Welfare at SeaWorld Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates and a diplomat of the American College of Zoological Medicine. He also is a member of the IUCN Species Survival Commission (Snake Specialist Group) and a member of the International Whaling Commission Strandings Expert Panel. He enjoys working on all creatures, with a focus on marine fauna.
ANTONIO FERNÁNDEZ
Antonio is a European specialist in veterinary pathology and veterinary forensic pathology. He is currently a professor of veterinary pathology and the director of the Canary Islands WOAH Collaborating Centre for Wildlife Health at the Institute of Animal Health (Veterinary School, University of Las Palmas GC).
LOUISA HAWKES
Louisa is a biologist and has worked at Project Jonah New Zealand since 2013. She leads marine mammal stranding response operations, which are often multi-day and multi-agency, alongside community training and national conservation education programmes.
GREG HOFMEYR
Greg is the curator of the marine mammal collection at the Port Elizabeth Museum at Bayworld in Gqeberha, South Africa. He is also responsible for the stranding programme along the Southern and Eastern Cape. He has worked with pinnipeds on the coasts of Southern Africa and in the Subantarctic for the past 33 years. Greg is a member of the Pinniped Specialist Group of the IUCN.
LUCY KEITH-DIAGNE
Lucy is a co-founder and the director of the African Aquatic Conservation Fund, a non-profit research and conservation organization based in Senegal, West Africa. She also leads AACF’s African manatee and Atlantic humpback dolphin projects, as well as the Senegal Stranding Network. Lucy is a Pew Marine Fellow and sits on the Aquatic Mammals and Aquatic Wild Meat Working Groups of the Convention of Migratory Species.
LAURI LEACH
Lauri is a permit biologist at the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission. She worked as a veterinary technician and volunteered for marine mammal rescue and rehabilitation programs for several years.
SANDRO MAZZARIOL
Sandro is a veterinary pathologist and associated professor at the Veterinary School at the University of Padova. Since 2010 he has led led the Cetaceans Emergency Response Team within the Italian Stranding Network. He participated to several national and international project aimed to build functional stranding network in the Mediterranean Sea and to respond to emergencies involving marine mammals and sea turtles. Since 2017 he's been nominated chair of the International Whaling Commission Stranding Expert Panel.
MARCELA UHART
Marcy is a wildlife veterinarian with the University of California, Davis, USA. She is based in Patagonia, Argentina, where she leads the Southern Right Whale Health Monitoring and Stranding Program and addresses health issues affecting marine mammals and seabirds.
KRISTI WEST
Kristi is an Associate Researcher at the University of Hawaii, a Professor in Residence at Chaminade University and a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institution. She has directed necropsy and cause of death investigations for stranded cetaceans in the Pacific Islands region since 2006. In addition to coordinating cetacean stranding response and necropsy in the Hawaiian Islands, Kristi continues to work closely with stranding response partners throughout the greater Pacific to build capacity for increased sampling and diagnostics. Kristi’s work broadly aims to identify and evaluate threats that cetaceans face, and she is particularly interested in understanding infectious and non-infectious disease processes as well as the impact of anthropogenic activities on Pacific Island cetaceans.
JACK WEI-CHENG YANG
Jack, a veterinarian and Professor at the Veterinary School of National Taiwan University, has dedicated over two decades to the rescue and research of stranded cetaceans in Taiwan. His research, focusing on pathogen and disease surveillance, noise-related stress evaluation, and the development of diagnostic tools, serves as a bridge between scientific discovery and effective marine resource management, benefiting both domestic and international organizations dedicated to rational and sustainable conservation strategies.