PEOPLE

Dr. Alexandra Petrunina

Alexandra is a marine biologist and Senior Researcher in the Department of Invertebrate Zoology of the Biological Faculty at Moscow State University (MSU). She received her MS from MSU in 2008 for her work on copepods associated with shallow water sea stars in southern Vietnam and her PhD from MSU in 2012 for her research on the Tantulocarida, a group of microscopic, parasitic crustaceans. Alexandra has been collaborating with her former scientific advisor Gregory Kolbasov since 2012 on projects involving the Tantulocarida and other fascinating parasitic crustaceans such as the Ascothoracida and Facetotecta. She is excited to be one of the organisers of the 4th IWOSC and looks forward to welcoming the participants to the White Sea Biological Station.

Dr. Julianne Kalman Passarelli

Julianne is the Exhibits and Collections Curator at the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium (CMA) in San Pedro, California, U.S.A. She researches and implements new exhibits, provides curatorial support to the aquarium and education collections and runs a field research program. She specializes in parasitology, ecology, and environmental endocrinology of marine fishes. Current projects include a book revision of Miller and Lea's Guide to the Coastal Marine Fishes of California, an update to a checklist of the parasitic fauna of fishes found along the western United States, and descriptions of local California parasitic copepods and marine leeches. She is a past President of the Southern California Academy of Sciences (SCAS) and is Vice President of the World Association of Copepodologists (WAC). She recently hosted the 13th International Conference on Copepoda (ICOC) in July 2017 at the CMA and co-organised the last three IWOSC.

Dr. Danny Tang

Danny is a Scientist with the Ocean Monitoring Section at the Orange County Sanitation District (OCSD) in Fountain Valley, California, U.S.A. He leads a talented team of biologists and environmental scientists in monitoring the sediment quality and benthic animal communities adjacent to and farther afield from the OCSD's 5-mile ocean outfall. Prior to joining the OCSD in 2013, Danny conducted copepod systematic and ecological studies in the U.S.A., Australia and Japan. He also undertook taxonomic and environmental projects on the subterranean fauna of Western Australia. He served on the Executive Council of the WAC from 2011-2017 and is currently the President-Elect of the Southern California Society of Parasitologists. Danny co-organised the 13th ICOC and all three IWOSC.

Prof. Rony Huys

Rony started his research career at the University of Gent, Belgium before joining The Natural History Museum in London in 1992. The main topic of his research is the systematics, phylogeny and ecological radiation of free-living and symbiotic copepods, using morphology and molecular markers. He has published extensively on marine harpacticoid copepods across the entire bathymetric range from the intertidal zone to the deep sea while in the last two decades his research has seen a change in focus towards unravelling the evolutionary relationships of parasitic copepods associated with fish and invertebrate hosts. Rony is a past President of the World Association of Copepodologists (WAC) and has acted as a tutor during the triennial pre-conference Workshops on Morphology and Systematics of Copepods since 2002, having organised the last three (Mexico, Korea, U.S.A.). He also offered training during the last two IWOSC in South Africa and Australia.

Dr. Viatcheslav Ivanenko

Viatcheslav (aka Slava) began studying marine invertebrates as an undergraduate student at Lomonosov Moscow State University. Since then, he has published over 70 papers in international journals dealing with the taxonomy, development, comparative morphology, ecology, and evolution of marine invertebrates (with a heavy focus on copepod crustaceans and sponges) living in different environments ranging from the abyssal zone to coral reefs. He has discovered a high diversity of free living and symbiotic crustaceans living in deep sea hydrothermal vents and in shallow water coral reefs. Viatcheslav has also participated in many international expeditions dedicated to the study of marine organisms in deep sea volcanoes of the Atlantic Ocean and in shallow waters of the Caribbean Islands, Australia, French Polynesia, Maldives, Vietnam, Taiwan, China, India, Cuba, and Red, Black, White and Japan Seas. As a result, he has built a unique collection of symbiotic microcrustaceans living on invertebrates of tropical coral reefs.