Meet the 2018 Ocean Talks Speakers

Gizele Garcia is a professor and researcher at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ).

Gizele has been working to develop research in the field of reef systems in Brazil, mainly in Abrolhos and the Great Amazon Reef.

In 2017 and 2018, Gizele's team spent 20 days aboard Greenpeace’s Esperanza ship when they discovered the thriving 700-mile-long warm water reef in the mouth of the Amazon. The mysterious reef is about to be a focus of oil exploration; an area that provides habitat for many rare species, including some not already known to science.

Captain Philip G. Renaud, USN (Ret) is the Executive Director of the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, an American public benefit organisation with a global mission.

Throughout the past 14 years of his leadership, the Foundation has matured into a world-class scientific organisation dedicated to conservation of the marine environment, particularly coral reef ecosystems. He successfully implemented and completed the Foundation’s ambitious Global Reef Expedition program; a five-year circumnavigation of the globe with the objective of mapping and surveying coral reefs of the world to stem the decline in coral reef health.

His career in oceanography began at the Naval Academy where he earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Oceanography in 1979. During his distinguished 25-year career in the Navy, he served as the oceanographer of an aircraft carrier, the lead oceanographer for the Commander, Second Fleet, and his naval career culminated as the Commanding Officer of the Naval Oceanographic Office.

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