Governing Board
On this page you can learn about our current Governing Board and what they do at OPI.
Poul Holm, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.
As a professor of environmental history, my field is human-nature relations. My current research focusses on the North Atlantic marine environment, c. 1400-1700, especially the expansion of the fisheries around 1500 during a time of climate change and internationalisation of trade.
— What is your position on the Board and what does this entail?
I serve as the chair of the Board.
— What is your interest in serving on the Board of OPI?
I am keen to secure the long-term sustainability of OPI. We are a small but growing community and it is vital we maintain a welcoming and well-functioning umbrella organisation.
— What is one hope or goal you have for OPI moving forward?
I hope we can keep uncovering amazing stories. Marine environmental history and historical ecology was borne out of curiosity: Can we know what the seas used to look like 500 years ago? What was the role of the sea through human history? Caring about a marine world that we hardly ever see must build on a sense of connectedness. Our kind of history feeds that basic human need.
Alison MacDiarmid, National Institute of Atmospheric and Water Research (NIWA), New Zealand.
— What is your position on the Board and what does this entail?
As well as contributing to regular monthly OPI business, I have co-convened the last three Oceans Past conferences in Estonia, Portugal, and Germany.
— What is your interest in serving on the Board of OPI?
My interest in serving on the Board is to bring a southern hemisphere and Oceania perspective to OPI which continues to have primarily a European and North American makeup. It would be great to broaden OPI membership and participation in OP conferences to Asian, African and South American researchers.
— What is one hope or goal you have for OPI moving forward?
My hope is for OPI to help ensure that a historical perspective is included in marine policy development so that, for example, goals for rebuilding ecosystems are not restricted to the recently observed past. This means that we need to ensure that implications for policy development are spelt out clearly in our reports and papers in language that policy makers can readily adopt. This could require us to invite marine policy analysts to be co-authors, or better still collaborators in our research from first conceptualisation. I know from first-hand experience in New Zealand that policy makers welcome such efforts
Cristina Brito, Assistant Professor, NOVA FCSH, CHAM - Centre for the Humanities (Portugal).
I am based in Lisbon where I conduct my research on early modern marine environmental history, focusing on the study of manatees, sea turtles and many other large marine animals, and the relationships between humans and the non-human marine world.
— What is your position on the Board and what does this entail?
I am the Treasurer in the OPI Board. I also usually engage with the communication and social media of OPI.
— What is your interest in serving on the Board of OPI?
My main goal in this group is to make sure that the Portuguese and Spanish-speaking scientific communities are represented, mostly by making an effort in the integration of colleagues and scholarship from the South Atlantic (African and Central and South American countries).
— What is one hope or goal you have for OPI moving forward?
My hope is for OPI to become a global platform for the dissemination and outreach of matters related to the Past of the Oceans in the broad sense, particularly in places and communities where these themes are not known; to engage the academic communities in developing new disciplines and fields of research, such as marine environmental history and historical marine ecology; to expand the value of history in the understanding of current day issues/problems and in the proposal of sustainable management measures for endangered species, and for marine ecosystems and resources. And, on a more personal note, to keep on trying to save the whales!
Dr. Ruth Thurstan, Lecturer in Biosciences at the Centre for Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter’s Cornwall campus.
My core area of research is marine historical ecology, with a particular focus upon understanding the scale of ecological and social changes in fisheries over the past 200 years.
— What is your position on Board and what does this entail?
I am the Secretary of the Board and am also involved in convening the Oceans Past conference series.
— What is your interest in serving on the Board of OPI?
I am interested in examining the magnitude and drivers of social-ecological change in marine systems, which requires interdisciplinary thinking and collaboration with researchers and stakeholders. By being on the Board I hope to be in a better position to engage researchers, students, and the wider public in such research.
— What is one hope or goal you have for OPI moving forward?
I am passionate about leveraging historical perspectives to inform on past changes, drivers and their outcomes for ecosystems and human communities. I hope we can use this channel to better connect our findings to management and policy and communicate as widely as possible the changes that have occurred to our oceans as a result of human impacts.
Dr. Ben Fitzhugh, Professor of Anthropology (specializing in Archaeology), University of Washington (USA).
My scholarship focuses on human-environmental dynamics in maritime, Subarctic regions around the North Pacific over the past several thousand years, with particular emphasis on the indigenous cultures of the Kodiak, Kuril and northern Japanese Archipelagos.
— What is your position on the Board and what does this entail?
I have served on the board since 2018 and co-hosted both (virtual) 2020 OPI meeting and the 2022 OPI meeting in Seattle (joint with the annual meeting of the Ecosystem Studies of Subarctic Seas/ ESSAS regional fisheries ecology program).
— What is your interest in serving on the Board of OPI?
I agreed to serve out of a deep interest in the dynamic interplay between the ocean systems and the histories of maritime cultures, not to mention the opportunity to become acquainted with an exciting community of scholars with interests closely connected to my own. In 2014, I co-founded the Paleoecology of Subarctic Seas (PESAS) working group, a science-heavy, interdisciplinary community within the fisheries ecology research group known as the Ecosystem Studies of Subarctic Seas, and PESAS has always wanted to have more robust connections with the environmental humanities and maritime history. OPI has been doing this well and joining forces seems like productive fun… and indeed it is!
— What is one hope or goal you have for OPI moving forward?
I see OPI as the perfect venue to build richer connections between the histories of human maritime interactions and the temporal dynamics of climate and ocean ecosystems. I enjoy learning about the great work being done by colleagues across OPI that connect these themes, especially in the European North Atlantic area, and to promote similar engagement in other regions of the world. One area we have worked to expand is in the North Pacific, where my own research is focused and where we have networks connecting North American and East Asian scholars. I have been pleased to see OPI expand as well to be more inclusive of scholars from the tropics and southern hemisphere and to grapple with ways of including more Indigenous voices and Indigenous knowledge. I believe historical ecology of the maritime system has vital lessons to share with the world about long-term trends in human-ecological relationships that are obscured in much contemporary the science and policy, driven by less than 100 years of environmental data and a lack of focus on connected human histories. We can do better, and our stories are important for future planning.
Dr. Rachel M. Winter, PhD
— What is your position on the Board and what does this entail?
I am the Editor for the quarterly newsletter (Oceans Past Newsletter) that gets sent out on behalf of the OPI. This involves working with the OPI community to gather news and material for each newsletter and then assembling the final product. I also have been attending Board meetings and contributing ideas to the upcoming Oceans Past X Conference.
— What is your interest in serving on the Board of OPI?
I am interested in helping to foster international and cross-disciplinary collaborations and promoting early career researchers by striving to select a diverse range of content for the Newsletter. I hope that through the large (and growing reach) of our newsletter and choices with content, new ideas are shared and new connections are made.
— What is one hope or goal you have for OPI moving forward?
I hope to see OPI lead to more bridges being formed between researchers, policymakers, and fisheries-dependent communities. I think that by further incorporating additional perspectives (geographically, research career stage, disciplines, etc.) we reach richer insights and our work can have more meaningful impacts for fisheries management and communities.
Carolina Chong Montenegro (Early Career Researcher)
— What is your position on the Board and what does this entail?
I am an ECR board member. I also support the OPI membership admin and contribute to regular monthly OPI objectives
— What is your interest in serving on the Board of OPI?
I am interested in the use of interdisciplinary approaches to reconstruct ecological trends of important fish species and evaluate the effects of fishing on fish populations. My interest in serving on the Board is to support the OPI goals and help establish collaborations and networks across disciplines.
— What is one hope or goal you have for OPI moving forward?
I hope to support further collaborations across disciplines and time periods, and help build stronger working partnerships among OPI members globally.
llse A. Martínez Candelas (Early Career Researcher)
I am a PhD student at the University of Victoria, Canada. I am interested in understanding how historical data can be integrated within fisheries management frameworks. My research is based in Mexico, where if I’m lucky and I’m doing fieldwork, you may find me interviewing fishers or looking for information in archives.
— What is your position on the Board and what does this entail?
I am a new board member; I have been attending monthly meetings, giving suggestions for the 2024 conference themes and promoting the event on social media.
— What is your interest in serving on the Board of OPI?
I was born and raised in Mexico, which has a rich history and culture. Fisheries are weaved within the cultural identity of hundreds of thousands of people in the country. However, aside from a few amazing researchers, marine historical ecology is not a well-known subject in my country and in many others from the Global South. I am interested in promoting this conference among Global South researchers that may be missing a space where they can meet and connect with people doing similar work.
— What is one hope or goal you have for OPI moving forward?
I hope my involvement can help highlight the fantastic work of researchers from developing countries, that despite the many obstacles they face, continue to be creative and innovative. One of my goals would be to help to make OPI a diverse conference where people from all nationalities get to learn about the different histories that have shaped human relationships with the ocean. It is important to shed light on the similarities and differences between regions and countries to be able to promote adequate solutions for a better future at a local scale. I look forward to OPI becoming a conference that promotes international collaboration and new voices are taken into account.
Youri van den Hurk (Early Career Researcher)
— What is your position on the Board and what does this entail?
I am one of the Early Career Researcher representatives on the board. I would like to ensure a strong presence of ECRs within the OPI. Together with Ilse, I take care of the OPI Instagram account.
— What is your interest in serving on the Board of OPI?
I have attended the OPI meetings for several years now and have always enjoyed attending these conferences. By sitting on the board I hope to make these meetings even more attractive to researchers and especially to ECRs.
— What is one hope or goal you have for OPI moving forward?
I would like to see the OPI get bigger and attract people from more various backgrounds. Moreover, I would like to see a direct link with conservation ecologists and policy makers and make the data we collect from the ocean’s past more relevant to modern issues. It is my strong belief that the past holds important lessons for the present and future.