Filter Results for:
"Policy"

Filter Results for: "Policy"

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Ana Stanic

Ana Stanic

Australia

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ANA is an Energy and International Lawyer and a Law Lecturer at the University of Dundee.

She advises governments, financial institutions and companies around the world on EU law, International law and Energy law. Having worked for a decade for the large US and UK law firms she set up her own law firm in London eight years ago.

Unlike traditional law firms Ana puts teams of lawyers and other experts together to create tailor-made teams for each specific project. Her practice spans the EU, Eastern Europe and CIS countries. She has worked in Africa in the past as well.

Ana has been passionate about Gaia ever since she studied tree dieback in Central Europe and the effects of the raise in sea temperature on marine plankton in the Gulf of Trieste at the United World College of the Adriatic.

She loves sailing scuba diving and hiking in the mountains. She is a trustee of Resurgence/Ecologist magazine.

Ana has been fascinated by the Amazon since she was a little girl watching David Bellamy’ s nature programmes. She wanted to grow up being just like him. She was reading Jay Griffiths book “”Wild”” when she learned about the eXXpedition. She immediately applied and could not believe her luck when she was selected.

Having spent all her summers in the last decade on a remote island off the Dalmatian coast of Croatia which was littered in plastic and other rubbish she has become acutely aware of how polluted the world’s waters are. The trip to the Amazon will give Ana an opportunity to study the issue of water pollution first hand. Ana hopes to use this first-hand knowledge to help draft international treaties and domestic legislation to better regulate the production, disposal and reuse of plastic.

Catherine Cieczko

Catherine Cieczko

Belgium

Journalist and Public Affairs Consultant

Catherine trained as a journalist and is experienced in research & innovation, transport, energy and environment sectors. She works on improving stakeholders relations and ensuring visibility to EU Programmes within the EU community and beyond, through a large network of contacts.

Catherine offers a combination of counsel in public affairs and policies, with an experience in managing communications campaigns, including media relations, events, digital & print communication, social media and corporate branding. Working with passion to support the construction of Europe, she has embraced the challenge of the EU Green Deal to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent.

Catherine is a keen amateur sailor and through her sailing voyages she has become increasingly aware of the plastic polluting the oceans. Joining the eXXpedition journey is a way for her to explore further and come up with solutions as a citizen and policy influencer.

Learn more about Catherine's journey here:

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Khady Hamid

Khady Hamid

Maldives

Khady is passionate about creating change, finding ways to transform our existing systems in the world to make space for a better world where we can exist in harmony with nature. She currently works the Reduce Manager for Soneva Namoona, in which she is responsible for overseeing programs and projects to reduce single use plastics and overall waste. Khady has already achieved great progress in this field such as helping to set up glass water bottling facilities in Baa and Noonu atoll to provide an alternative for drinking water packaged in plastics. She is also working hard to introduce menstrual cups and reusable pads to island communities through a partnership between Soneva Namoona, UNFPA Maldives and Zero Waste Maldives.

Olivia Gilmore

Olivia Gilmore

United States of America

Diplomat

Olivia is a diplomat and international development practitioner. As a Foreign Service Officer for the United States Agency for International Development, she manages overseas assistance programs and supports US foreign policy in the areas of environmental sustainability, natural resources management, climate change, and biodiversity conservation. She is currently based in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where she manages programs on reforestation and marine conservation. Her next stop is the Galapagos Islands, where she will serve as an Embassy Science Fellow advising on waste management and combating ocean plastics.

Sandra Squire

Sandra Squire

United Kingdom

Local Politician

Sandra has sailed across the North Atlantic & Caribbean Sea and been shocked by the amount of plastic in our oceans. As a local politician, she’s used that knowledge and passion to change local policy regarding plastics. Including stopping the use of 100,000 single use coffee cups at one council.

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Sara Mirabilio

Sara Mirabilio

United States of America

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My passion for the ocean has existed since I first started forming solid memories. This passion carried through my childhood all the way to Long Island University’s Southampton College, where I majored in marine science, and on still further to William & Mary’s School of Marine Science at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, where I earned a master’s in marine science.

If you had asked me at age 12 what I wanted to be, it would’ve been dolphin trainer or sea turtle biologist. But as I grew and learned, it became apparent to me that the world ocean is in trouble. My career focus became how to strike the balance between economy and resource protection. My graduate research was directed towards the vitellogenic cycle of fish as a biomarker of environmental contamination and reproductive disruption.

In 2002, I tried my hand at Washington, D.C. policy-making as a National Sea Grant Office John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellow. But, salt water runs in my veins, and I soon turned in my business suits and high-heels for oilskins and flip-flops, joining North Carolina Sea Grant in August 2003 as a fisheries extension specialist in their Manteo Office.

My ongoing work includes cultivating cooperative research with the commercial and recreational fishing industries. Working together, fishermen and scientists can improve our understanding of the complex interactions between fishery resources and fishing practices. And of late, I have been trying to turn the tide on derelict fishing gear and other marine debris, which can smother and crush sensitive salt marsh habitat. Beginning in 2014, with support from NOAA’s Marine Debris Program and North Carolina Sea Grant, the North Carolina Coastal Federation began an annual sounds and shorelines cleanup. The effort is a public-private partnership between fishermen, N.C. Marine Patrol officers and the general public.

When I saw the expedition goals — making the unseen seen, from toxins in the ocean to toxins in our bodies, and raising the visibility and voices of women in science along the way, I knew I had to be a part of this endeavor.

As a female, marine scientist in what still is a male-dominated field, I am deeply devoted to empowering women in science (admittedly only one of the underrepresented minorities, but the one I have been most involved with).

This voyage also will provide a chance to revisit my early career focus on environmental toxicology and participate in scientifically documenting the extent of marine pollution in the Caribbean. More rewarding will be educating others about the potentially harmful effects of various chemical, biological and physical agents on marine ecosystems.

But most personal of all is, I just celebrated my second year as a breast cancer survivor. At the mere age of 37, I was diagnosed with stage 2 hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer. One will never know the cause of their cancer, but research strongly suggests that exogenous, man-made chemicals that mimic estrogen can alter the functions of the endocrine system and cause various health defects including cancer. My story has a happy ending, or at least I’m determined to make it so. I feel blessed to have detected my cancer early, and so my mission is, like that of eXXpedition, to stamp out late detection of breast cancer.