Our People
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Brian is our semi-nomadic conservation coordinator, currently based in the coastal city of Toliara. He’s been working with communities in Madagascar on conservation and sustainable natural resource management since 2006, speaks fluent Malagasy, and is a talented photographer.
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Caroline coordinates our community health programme in the Velondriake area. Before this, she served as a Peace Corps volunteer in northeast Madagascar and Namibia. She’s passionate about upholding women’s reproductive rights, and enabling them to access the health services that they deserve!
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Garth leads our blue forests project, leveraging the enormous value of mangrove forests from supporting fisheries to sequestering carbon dioxide in order to protect these extraordinary ecosystems. He has a strong interest in using photography to tell the human story behind conservation.
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Rado is responsible for our tortoise, fin fish, shark and turtle monitoring programmes, and supervising octopus landing data collection in Velondriake. In his spare time, he takes volunteers diving and helps with fish and benthic training. Rado has a Masters degree in oceanology from the University of Toliara, and in early 2013 started work as an EDGE Fellow, focusing on the EDGE-listed coral species Horastrea indica.
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Lalao is one of our senior marine scientists, and is passionate about blue forests! She has been involved in mangrove field research for five years, undertaking a number of large-scale assessments in the southwest and northwest of Madagascar.
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Mahasoa is our health education specialist and radio production whizz! He’s responsible for facilitating all sorts of health education activities and is working with community members in Velondriake to produce interactive radio shows that encourage discussion around important health topics.
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Paul is our education coordinator based in Velondriake. He’s passionate about supporting young people reach their full potential, share their ideas and take a lead in local conservation efforts. He’s a talented guitar player, home-brewer, and has a black belt in Tae Kwon Do!
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Madison started with Blue Ventures as an expedition volunteer, then returned to Andavadoaka to work as a dive manager before taking on the role of expeditions manager! She’s a certified PADI instructor and loves diving with the purpose of supporting our marine research, as well as meeting volunteers from all over the world.
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Sylvia is one of our blue carbon scientists, originally from Madagascar, with experience working on conservation projects in Indonesia and Thailand. In her spare time she likes cycling, playing badminton and blogging.
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Kate coordinates our marine conservation efforts in the Velondriake locally managed marine area, and supports the blue forests team with their work in this region. She started with Blue Ventures as a science intern in London before joining the team in Andavadoaka as a field scientist in 2012.
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Zo joined our blue forests team in February 2012 as a research assistant. He spends much of his time in the field conducting mangrove forest measurements such as canopy cover, mangrove regeneration and stump diameter. He is also learning to map his field efforts using GIS, and is keen to develop his understanding of mangrove carbon stocks.
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Aude is our blue forests coordinator based in Ambanja, in the northwest of Madagascar. An agro-economist by training, she developed a strong interest in natural resource management and climate change adaptation through her previous work experience in Brazil and Vietnam.
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Jen is our Belize country coordinator, and first started with Blue Ventures back in 2011 as a field scientist! She is leading our efforts to promote domestic and international export markets for invasive lionfish; an innovative market-based solution to reducing the destructive impact of this species on local reefs and fisheries.
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Silvia coordinates all of our community education and outreach in Belize, especially working with school children in the main fishing village of Sarteneja. She comes from Italy, and has experience working in Peru.
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Al is BV’s founder and executive director. A marine ecologist with an unhealthy obsession for corals, he has spent the past decade developing conservation initiatives in the Indian Ocean, and led his first marine research expedition to Madagascar in 2001.
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Richard is our managing director, based in London. He first joined BV as a volunteer with an expedition to Andavadoaka, Madagascar in 2004. He was so moved by this experience that shortly after returning to London, he left his career in commercial broadcasting and went back to Andavadoaka to work as expeditions manager. After a year in Madagascar, Richard moved to our London office to manage our expeditions.
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Charlie is our monitoring and evaluation coordinator. She has led numerous marine research expeditions scuba diving along thousands of kilometres of Madagascar’s coastline, and is currently working on number-crunching all of our scientific data so that we can measure and communicate our impact!
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Laura coordinates our reproductive health programme along Madagascar’s west coast. Before this, she spent two years living on Madagascar’s southeast coast, developing health projects for a local NGO. She grew up beside the ocean in Copenhagen so loves sailing, cycling and cinnamon pastries (in moderation)!
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Jo supports our conservation and research programmes in Madagascar and Belize, and also coordinates BV’s communications. Outside of Blue Ventures she enjoys cooking, photography and seeing as much of the world as she can while partaking in adrenaline-fuelled activities!
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Vik is a practicing doctor with a passion for marine conservation, medical director of our reproductive health programme, and architect of our integrated Population-Health-Environment approach. In his spare time he works as a life coach, and DJs on his local radio station!
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Fran is our conservation programmes manager, based in London. She supports our teams in Madagascar and Belize, and makes sure that all activities are on track. Fran also studies part-time for a PhD focusing on the status of artisanal shark and turtle fisheries in southwest Madagascar.
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Trevor is our GIS guru, currently based at the Portland State University in Portland, USA! He manages our relationships with all sorts of remote sensing and mapping experts, including the folks at Google Earth.
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