Brad Ack has 35 years of experience working at the intersection of science, policy and environmental innovation, focused on the preservation of nature and a living world. During his career he has designed and implemented innovative conservation and sustainability initiatives spanning tropical forests and high deserts to estuaries and the global ocean. Brad has worked for both government and NGOs at senior levels.
Brad serves as Chief Executive Officer for Ocean Visions, an NGO at the center of a collaborative network of research institutions and innovators, investors, and practitioners of ocean regeneration. Ocean Visions is advancing a new agenda for the ocean, focused on directly addressing the greatest cause of harm – greenhouse gas pollution that is driving existential threats to the ocean. Ocean Visions works across sectors and disciplines to unlock new intellectual and financial resources to source, develop and scale cutting-edge innovation to regenerate critical components of the ocean-climate system.
Previously Brad served as SVP Oceans at WWF-US; Executive Director of the Puget Sound Recovery Program for the State of Washington; and Regional Director-Americas for the Marine Stewardship Council. He earlier led conservation programs at Grand Canyon Trust and started his career working on community-based conservation in Latin America. Brad received his Master’s degree from Georgetown University and Bachelor’s degree at Macalester College.
Harry Atwater is the Otis Booth Leadership Chair of the Division of Engineering and Applied Science, and the Howard Hughes Professor of Applied Physics and Materials Science at the California Institute of Technology. Atwater’s scientific effort lies at the junction energy conversion processes and nanoscale light-matter interactions. His current research in energy centers on carbon capture and removal, high efficiency photovoltaics, and photoelectrochemical processes for generation of solar fuels. His research has resulted in world records for solar photovoltaic conversion and photoelectrochemical water splitting. His work also spans fundamental phenomena in nanophotonics and plasmonics.
Currently Atwater is the Director for the Liquid Sunlight Alliance (LiSA), a Department of Energy Hub program for solar fuels. He is also founder of 5 early-stage companies, including Captura, which is developing scalable approaches to carbon dioxide removal from oceanwater, and Alta Devices, which set world records for photovoltaic cell and module efficiency. From 2014-2020, Atwater served as Director of the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP), the DOE Energy Innovation Hub for solar fuels. He was an early pioneer in nanophotonics and plasmonics; he gave the name to the field of plasmonics in 2001. Atwater is a Member of US National Academy of Engineering, and a Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher. He is also a Fellow of the APS, MRS, Optica, SPIE, and the National Academy of Inventors. He is also the founding Editor in Chief of the journal ACS Photonics. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the von Hippel Award of the Materials Research Society.
Over a 32-year career Jerry has developed models as vehicles to understand, predict and manage the marine environment. He is the Head of Science for the PML Marine Systems Group. He is particularly interested in Climate Change and Ocean Acidification as well as risk assessment for Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and CO2 removal (CDR) technologies.
He has pioneered the development of local and regional scale projections of climate change and ocean acidification, including impacts and feedbacks to ecosystems.
He has been leading CCS related research since 2004, in a wide range of projects, including the UK funded QICS project which developed a world-first release of CO2 into shallow marine sediments. He has played a key role in identifying and quantifying impact risks in marine environments and developing strategies for CCS monitoring, recently contributing to industry standard protocols for monitoring and to a UK Royal Society report on CCS.
Jordan leads Commercial Operations at Running Tide, overseeing the teams responsible for regulatory affairs and policy, business development and enterprise growth, new markets and international expansion, partnerships, product, communications and marketing, and the organization’s coastal restoration work. In this role, he collaborates closely with Running Tide’s teams of scientists, researchers, engineers, and marine operators.
Prior to joining Running Tide, Jordan held roles in strategic communications and media firms, founded a startup accelerator focused on early-stage tech companies, and served in the Obama White House and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. He joined Running Tide. He joined Running Tide because he was convinced that there exists no path to solving planetary problems without partnering with the natural systems of the ocean.
Pete Chargin currently serves as the VP of Commercialization & Community Relations at Planetary. Prior to this, Pete served as the Chief Marketing Officer at OpsMx from January 2020 to December 2021. In this role, they were responsible for all aspects of marketing, including product marketing, demand generation, website management, partner outreach, and brand identity.
Before OpsMx, Pete served as an Executive Coach at Torch from January 2019 to December 2020. In this role, they provided guidance and advice to executives on a variety of topics related to leadership and career development.
Pete also spent two years as the Vice President Marketing and Product Marketing at BigPanda from January 2017 to December 2019. In this role, they oversaw all aspects of BigPanda's marketing strategy and execution, including product launches, go-to-market campaigns, and thought-leadership initiatives.
Prior to BigPanda, Pete served as the Vice President Product Marketing at Delphix from January 2015 to December 2017. In this role, they were responsible for leading Delphix's product marketing efforts, including messaging and positioning, product launches, field enablement, and customer engagement.
Pete Chargin attended Stanford University, where they earned a BS with Honors in Mathematical and Computer Sciences. Pete is also certified by the Scrum Alliance as a Certified Scrum Product Owner and a Certified Scrum Master. In addition, they have a certification from Pragmatic Marketing in Pragmatic Marketing.
Bella is an Associate Director with the Carbon Business Council, a nonprofit and tech-neutral trade association of more than 100 innovators in the carbon management space. At the association, Bella regularly works with government branches like the Department of Commerce, Department of Energy, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on carbon removal initiatives. She is also a Research Fellow with the Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy through American University and serves on an expert group for the UK Government on greenhouse gas removal business models. Previously, Bella has worked with the United Nations Environment Programme on a team specializing in hydrocarbon management and decarbonization. She holds a BS in Society and Environment and a BA in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and is in consideration for an MSc Environment and Development from the London School of Economics.
Jessica Cross is an earth scientist in the PNNL Coastal Sciences Division. Her research with the Environmental Biogeochemistry Team focuses on decarbonization and carbon dioxide removal (CDR), especially in marine and ocean settings. She frequently partners with local communities, private companies, and other federal agencies to explore safe, sustainable, and fair ways to implement effective CDR projects.
Jessica recently joined PNNL from the NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, where she oversaw the Alaska regional carbon monitoring program and founded NOAA’s Carbon Dioxide Removal Task Team. Her research has earned multiple honors and awards, including three Bronze Medals for federal service.
Jessica holds a PhD in Chemical Oceanography from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks and a BS in Chemistry from Rhodes College. In her spare time, Jessica reads voraciously, hikes occasionally, and tends a small, bee-friendly garden from her home in Seattle.
I am a marine researcher and would describe myself as a climate optimist, looking for solutions to mitigate climate change through nature-based ocean carbon sequestration.
I have an MSc in Marine Microbiology & a PhD in Biological Oceanography. I am currently the lead of a Helmholtz Young Investigator Group at the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, Germany. My research covers a broad range, from phytoplankton ecology and primary productivity, marine carbon dioxide removal, artificial and natural upwelling systems, climate change impacts on ecosystems, carbon and nutrient biochemistry, carbon export, and microbial functional diversity.
As part of my PhD research into sea algae, I was a regular visitor to the Arctic Ocean. I was able to see first-hand the devastating effects of global warming and the significant impact of climate change on this ecosystem. It was then that I started to move my focus towards finding practical solutions to the climate crisis.
My long-term mentor, Prof Victor Smetacek, introduced me to the seaweed Sargassum and the concept of the perpetual salt fountain for artificial upwelling. I could see this as a promising avenue for research and began to focus on the carbon sequestration potential of Sargassum. It is free-floating, has a high carbon sequestration efficiency and grows very rapidly (it can double in weight in a mere 1-3 weeks depending on conditions). It also has the potential to be used for other products as an alternative to fossil fuels.
I have helped to co-found and am the Lead Scientific Advisor at Seafields, who are aiming to upscale my research into Sargassum to sequester carbon and be part of the solution for climate change. We are currently developing a solution to grow the Sargassum offshore in the ocean deserts (the subtropical gyres) – providing it with nutrients from the deep waters using double upwelling pipes that use the energy of the temperature and salinity differences in the ocean to bring nutrient rich waters to the surface and fertilise the seaweed.
The seaweed sequesters carbon while growing and then we will harvest and process it at sea to extract the valuable products. We will then go on to bale and sink the rest into the abyssal plane of the deep oceans to store the remaining carbon. We carefully monitor the surface with biogeochemical sensors, drones and satellites and will collaborate with independent researchers to perform environmental impact assessments of the sinking of seaweed bales in the deep sea with state-of-the-art cameras and sensors.
Professor Ed Hill CBE is Chief Executive of the National Oceanography Centre (NOC), one of the world’s most innovative oceanographic institutions.
He has a research background in physical oceanography, specialising in the circulation of continental shelf seas and participated in over 20 research expeditions. Professor Hill received his MSc and PhD degrees in oceanography from Bangor University and his BSc in Applied Mathematics from the University of Sheffield. He was appointed a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2020 for services to environmental sciences. Professor Hill has served, and continues to serve on numerous national and international advisory bodies.
Dr. Chris Jones has nearly 30 years’ experience of climate research at the Met Office Hadley Centre where he is a Research Fellow and formerly head of the “Earth System and Mitigation Science” team.
The Met Office Hadley Centre is the UK’s National Climate research Centre and provides world-leading scientific advice to UK government in support of its climate policies.
Chris’s personal research is in numerical modelling of the climate system and its interaction with natural ecosystems. Understanding how the world’s natural carbon sinks will respond to climate change is essential in order to quantify the remaining carbon budgets to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement.
He has been a regular author for the IPCC since 2007 including the carbon cycle and projections chapters and the 2023 Synthesis Report (https://www.ipcc.ch/ar6-syr/).
David is a senior scientist in the Marine Biogeochemical Modelling Department at the
GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel, Germany. His research expertise and
interests include the assessment of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) approaches for climate change
mitigation, understanding feedbacks between biogeochemical cycles and the climate, and
investigating interactions between marine ecosystems and biogeochemical cycles. David uses
Earth system models to conduct much of his work and enjoys collaborating with scientists from a
wide range of other disciplines when working on complex research topics. David currently leads
the EU Horizon 2020 project OceanNETs, which investigates ocean-based CDR approaches, coleads
the Carbon Dioxide Removal Model Intercomparison Project (CDRMIP), and is a PI in 5
other projects on CDR. He was also a contributing author to the recent IPCC AR6 Working
Group I and Working III reports on the topic of CDR.
Professor Sir David King is Emeritus Professor of Chemistry, at the University of Cambridge, founder of the Centre for Climate Repair at Cambridge University, and chair of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group. Previously he held the position of permanent Special Representative for Climate Change from September 2013 until March 2017. He was the Government's Chief Scientific Advisor from 2000 to 2007, during which time he raised awareness of the need for governments to act on climate change and was instrumental in creating the Energy Technologies Institute. Sir David has published over 500 scientific papers, covering policy, climate change, and physical chemistry. Elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1991; Foreign Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2002; knighted in 2003; made “Officier dans l’ordre national de la Légion d’honneur” in 2009. In Feb 2022 he was awarded the AAAS David and Betty Hamburg Award for Science Diplomacy.
Dr Vassilis Kitidis is an internationally acknowledged expert in field- and experimental-studies of carbon, non-CO2 greenhouse gases and nutrient cycling in a changing ocean.
A Senior Scientist with Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML, www.pml.ac.uk), Vassilis' work includes pioneering studies into the impact of ocean acidification on nutrient cycling.
He has led efforts to quantify ocean CO2 uptake and acidification at the basin-scale and is a regular contributor to the global carbon budget.
Vassilis' involvement with carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) stems from collaborations with industry and academia, providing evidence for both nature-based and engineering solutions.
He currently has a leading role in five CDR projects spanning wetland restoration to ocean alkalinity enhancement involving national and international collaborators.
Leo works on a variety of UK net-zero policy areas, including carbon pricing, greenhouse gas removals and MRV, the voluntary carbon market and decarbonisation of the land use sector.
Leo has a background in environmental science and geography and completed a PhD in Environmental Studies at Victoria University of Wellington in 2020. His thesis explored the role of carbon forestry, registered under the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme, as a land development option for Māori landowners. Subsequent to this, he was employed as a policy analyst at the New Zealand Ministry for Primary Industries on a work programme to develop an agricultural emissions pricing mechanism to support New Zealand farmers and growers to reduce emissions in line with statutory obligations.
Chris’ research focusses on understanding the processes that cause, and can help mitigate, global climate change. He achieves this through the application of geochemical techniques to investigate interactions between Earth system processes, their role in regulating biogeochemical cycles, and how they are affected by environmental perturbations in modern and ancient settings. Much of his current research centres around applying that knowledge to assess potential approaches for combatting future climate change via carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and carbon capture and storage (CCS) techniques.
Chris is the scientific and technical lead of the Horizon Europe funded ‘Strategies for the evaluation and assessment of ocean-based carbon dioxide removal’ (SEAO2-CDR) project that aims to deliver the insights, tools and guidelines required for the safe and effective implementation of appropriate ocean-based CDR approaches. He is also a partner in the ‘Leverhulme Centre for Climate Change Mitigation’ (LC3M) and UKRI/BBSRC funded ‘Enhanced Rock Weathering Greenhouse Gas Removal Demonstrator’ (UK ERW GGR-D) projects that are investigating the viability of ERW as a CDR technique.
Ralph is a Professorial Research Fellow in the Department of Statistics at LSE as well as holding a position with The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He is a fellow of the Institute for Marine Engineering, Science and Technology, the Society for Underwater Technology, the Marine technology Society, the Royal Meteorological Society and the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce.
Ralph’s academic background is in ocean science and technology. Throughout his career he has worked at the interface between the public and private sectors in meeting the need for monitoring of the ocean environment in support of understanding climate change, the use of ocean resources and the protection of the marine environment. He is a former chair of the IOC/UNESCO Global Ocean Observing System Steering Committee and currently serves on the advisory bodies of a number on leading ocean science research organisations, including Plymouth Marine Laboratory and the Schmidt Ocean Institute. He is Editor in Chief of the Journal of Operational Oceanography and is a founding trustee of the Rising Seas Institute.
I have been at Edinburgh Law School since 2003. Previously a barrister in London and Lecturer at King's College London, I undertook my graduate work at the University of Cambridge, the European University Institute (Florence) and the University of California, Berkeley (Fulbright Scholar).
As a climate lawyer my primary research foci are on the regulation of carbon dioxide removals (CDR) and climate constitutionalism. I am an interdisciplinary scholar and routinely co-author with non-lawyers and/or practitioners. My research profile extends across the breadth of climate law, including international regulatory regimes (on the Paris Agreement here and here), regions (e.g. Asia, and EU), institutions (UK Supreme Court, Export Credit Agencies, UNFCCC), technologies (CCS), and legal approaches/practices (Just Transitions, theory, and definitions).
A significant part of my work consists of engaging with practitioners in the climate world: legal professionals, public bodies, and civil society actors.
