Prof. Dr. Bela Hieronymus Buck studied neurophysiology and marine biology at the University of Bremen, at the Institute for Marine Research in Kiel and at the Center for Tropical Marine Ecology (ZMT) in Bremen (all in Germany). In the years 1999/2000 he was involved in research projects concerning the aquaculture of giant clams at the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA), the James Cook University and the Australian Institute for Marine Science (AIMS) in Townsville (all in Australia) in which he got is graduation as a marine biologist. Onwards, he worked in various research projects at the Center for Tropical Marine Ecology.

Since 2001 he is engaged in projects regarding the multifunctional use of offshore wind farms and offshore aquaculture at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) in Bremerhaven/Germany. He conducted his PhD in 2001-2004 in various aspects of offshore aquaculture related to technology, biology, legislation and ICZM issues within the German Bight (grade of excellent/highest distinction). From 2005 Dr. Buck was PostDoc at the AWI and is the head of the working group “Marine Aquaculture, Maritime Technologies and ICZM”.
He was responsible to establish the Institute for Marine Resources (IMARE), in which he is the head of the section “Marine Aquaculture” as well as a member of the Directory Board.

In July 2007 he was given a professorship for “Applied Marine Biology” from the University of Applied Sciences in Bremerhaven.

Today, Bela H. Buck is involved in various projects concerning the cultivation of marine plants/animals, the development of technological design and the realisation of pilot projects to commercial enterprises. He is in cooperation with various national/international institutions. He is responsible for the new RAS plant (2.4 Mio €) for aquaculture research, which was inaugurated in March 2011. Bela H. Buck won three prices during his scientific career (e.g. The Price for interdisciplinary research from the Chamber of Commerce).

Ph.D., Oceanography, University of Hawaii. Currently  Director of the Rhode Island Sea Grant College and Professor of Fisheries, Aquaculture and Marine Affairs at the University of Rhode Island. International Editor for Aquaculture (Elsevier Science, Netherlands) since 1999. Fellow of the American Association of the Advancement of Science and American Institute of Fishery Research Biologists. Chair Elect of the Board of Directors, Aquaculture without Frontiers (UK and USA). 

Received Outstanding Service Awards from the World Aquaculture Society and US Sea Grant Association. Lived and worked in 20 nations and has been lead Author of FAO, World Bank and US National Academy of Science studies and reviews plus held Visiting Scholar appointments at universities in Brazil, Malawi, Indonesia and USA. 

Current research investigates the carrying capacity, trophic ecology, and ecological engineering of environmentally and socially responsible aquaculture ecosystems in marine and freshwaters with an emphasis on low/no feed, detrital-based and bi-culture cage systems.

Kira Gee focuses her research on the sea as an emerging energy landscape, cultural ecosystem services, value conflicts and maritime spatial planning. Within the Zukunft Küste - Coastal Futures national research project (2004-2010), she carried out a stakeholder analysis and assessment on the perception of offshore wind farming, focusing in particular on the values ascribed to the sea by local residents and potential value conflicts resulting from offshore wind farming. 

Earlier she was involved in the drafting of a national ICZM strategy from the perspective of spatial planning, as well as co-author of the CADSES IIIb-funded “PlanCoast Handbook on Integrated Maritime Spatial Planning and Policy Recommendations”. 

More recently, she has carried out maritime policy analyses and co-authored the “Vision for Spatial Development of the Baltic Sea in 2030”. Currently she is part of the work package on governance, institutional and social analysis of the EU-funded KnowSeas project.

Dr. Richard Langan is the Director of Ocean and Coastal Technology Programs and a Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of New Hampshire (UNH). Programs under his direction focus on the development of tools and technologies for clean water and healthy coastal habitats and user driven science to address coastal environmental problems.  

He also directs the Atlantic Marine Aquaculture Center, which develops environmentally sound practices and advanced technology for raising native, coldwater finfish and shellfish in open ocean and nearshore environments. In addition to his administrative duties, he conducts research in molluscan shellfish aquaculture and restoration and in the development and assessment of marine and estuarine water and habitat quality monitoring programs. 

Prior to his tenure at the University, he was a commercial fisherman and the owner and operator of seafood and shellfish aquaculture businesses. He received a Ph.D. at the University of New Hampshire.

 Dr Klaus Lüning, born 14 March 1941, is a marine botanist specialized on ecophysiology, chronobiology, marine biogeography and cultivation of seaweeds. PhD (University of Kiel, Prof.  Fritz Gessner) and  Professor  (University of Hamburg). Marine Botanist at Biologische Anstalt (1969-1997) and   Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (1997-2006).  

Author of the book "Seaweeds. Their Environment, Biogeography and Eco¬physiology" (Wiley 1990). Coordinator for the EU project SEA¬PURA (Species diversifi¬cation and improve¬ment of aquatic production in seaweeds purifying effluents from integrated fish farms; 2001-2004). 

Founded 2006 Sylter Algenfarm GmbH & Co.KG for cultivation and commercial use of seaweeds in Germany.

Dr. Arne Fredheim is presently employed with SINTEF Fisheries and Aquaculture, Trondheim, Norway, as a research manager and director for “CREATE - centre for aquaculture technology”. He holds a PhD in marine hydrodynamics from Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).  

CREATE is a multi-disciplinary research centre established among eleven partners, research and industry, with the aim to develop technology, products and solutions for the marine fish farming of tomorrow. In addition to heading CREATE, Dr. Fredheim' s main current work involves research on topics related to technology for marine aquaculture. 

Previous research has been on current forces on and flow through net structures, structural and hydrodynamic analysis and assessment of floating fish farms and design criteria to prevent escape of fish from floating aquaculture installations. 

Dr. Gesche Krause is a coastal geographer and holds a PhD in natural resources management from the Department for Systems Ecology, Stockholm University. She trained at the Universities of Kiel, Greifswald (Germany), and Stockholm (Sweden) and worked in the UK and USA.

From 1997-2011 she led the geographical science research at the Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine Ecology (ZMT), Bremen, Germany. These involved research in the Brazilian Mangrove Dynamics and Management (MADAM, 1996–2005) and  the Science for the Protection of Indonesian Coastal Ecosystems (SPICE) programme on ornamental trade dynamics and coastal governance issues (2006-2011). She is co-founder of the ZMT Social-Ecological Systems (SES) Analysis research group and leader of the ICES study group on social dimensions of aquaculture.

She is also an associate scientist to the IMARE and has published a series of articles and a book on offshore windfarms/aquaculture interactions from a social science perspective.

Michael W. Ebeling works at the Institute of Sea Fisheries, which is part of the Johann Heinrich von Thünen-Institute, Federal Research Institute for Rural Areas, Forestry and Fisheries. Mr. Ebeling is dealing with fisheries, fish processing and aquaculture economics.

He is also affiliated to the University of Applied Sciences where he is Lecturer for Quantitative Methods and Economics. Since several years Mr. Ebeling is also involved in the European Fisheries Policy and just recently he has become chairman of the STECF Sub-group on Research Needs.

Michael W. Ebeling has studied Economics, Economic History, Economic Teaching, Political Science and  Philosophy at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, the Westfälische Wilhelms University Münster and the Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg where he made his Diploma.

After his Diploma he worked at the University of Kassel on Institutional Economics, especially about the role of law and legal institutions in Economic Development and in a project dealing with modelling of Regional Innovational Systems. Turning back to Oldenburg University he was engaged in an empirical project on Management Accounting in the German banking sector. Since 2007 he is now affiliated with the Institute of Sea Fisheries.

Since his Diploma he is also working as a private consultant and has dealt with a variety of issues ranging from the modeling of regional economic impact of changes in fishery in Northern Norway due to climate changes,  the evaluations of studies dealing with regional economic impacts of airports to the evaluation of reports concerning national data collection actions under the European Fishery Framework.

Florian Muehlbauer studied German and European Law at the University of Hamburg (1994-99 and 2004) and graduated as Master of Law in 2004. He gained international professional experience in international law firms in Dublin and Alicante. 

Since 2009, he holds a PhD scholarship at the Interdisciplinary Department of Rostock University and composes his doctoral thesis on the legal aspects of aquaculture in Europe, supervised by Prof. Dr. Detlef Czybulka (Chair of constitutional and administrative law, environmental law and public economic law at the faculty of law) and Prof. Dr. Harry Palm (Chair of Aquaculture and Sea Ranching at the faculty of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences). 

In addition, he is engaged as a lecturer for Aquaculture Law in the Master’s programme “Aquaculture” at Rostock University. Florian Muehlbauer is specialised in German and European environmental law and legal issues of aquaculture enterprises.

Since 2007 Dr. Nils Rene Goseberg is scientist at Franzius-Institut für Wasserbau und Küsteningenieurwesen at the University of Hannover. One of his research fields are studies about
„Open Ocean Multi Use“

Managing Director and majority owner of Offshore Shellfish Ltd

John Holmyard graduated from the University of Wales, Bangor in 1985, with a degree in Marine Biology and Oceanography. He applied the knowledge gained during his studies, to the development of one of Scotland's largest and most innovative mussel farming operations in Loch Etive, Argyll, which he owned and operated for 16 years. 

For the last 4 years he has been researching and planning the development of a large scale offshore mussel farm, to be built in the exposed waters of Lyme Bay, Devon. Construction of the first phase of the project begins in early 2011. The investigations for this project have taken him as far afield as France, China, New Zealand and the Netherlands and he has given talks and presentations on this subject at high profile shellfish conferences in the UK, Netherlands and Canada. 

John has also undertaken consultancy work on aquaculture for a wide range of clients worldwide, and continues to work with the research community and eNGOs to further develop mussel farming. He serves on strategy groups at National and EU level advising on the future of shellfish culture, with particular emphasis on the potential for integrating offshore cultivation with other maritime industries.

From 1995 to 2000 Mr Kumbartzky studied  Marine Biology at the University of Bremen. Continuing education in Project Management and Economics. Since 2008 Mr Kumbartzky is Project Manager at BARD Engineering GmbH.

From 2009 to 2011 he was Project Leader for several projects in the Netherlands. Since the end of 2011 he is Head of the Project Department at BARD with a focus on the operation of additional German projects of BARD, minimization of underwater noise and Open Ocean Multi Use.

Managing Director and majority owner of Offshore Shellfish Ltd

John Holmyard graduated from the University of Wales, Bangor in 1985, with a degree in Marine Biology and Oceanography. He applied the knowledge gained during his studies, to the development of one of Scotland's largest and most innovative mussel farming operations in Loch Etive, Argyll, which he owned and operated for 16 years. 

For the last 4 years he has been researching and planning the development of a large scale offshore mussel farm, to be built in the exposed waters of Lyme Bay, Devon. Construction of the first phase of the project begins in early 2011. The investigations for this project have taken him as far afield as France, China, New Zealand and the Netherlands and he has given talks and presentations on this subject at high profile shellfish conferences in the UK, Netherlands and Canada. 

John has also undertaken consultancy work on aquaculture for a wide range of clients worldwide, and continues to work with the research community and eNGOs to further develop mussel farming. He serves on strategy groups at National and EU level advising on the future of shellfish culture, with particular emphasis on the potential for integrating offshore cultivation with other maritime industries.

Dr. Hauke L. Kite-Powell is a Research Specialist at the Marine Policy Center of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.  He holds degrees in naval architecture, technology and policy, and ocean systems management from MIT.  

Dr. Kite-Powell’s research focuses on public and private sector management issues for marine resources and the economic activities that depend on them.  This includes work on economic and policy aspects of marine aquaculture of finfish and shellfish.

Eef Brouwers has over seven years of experience in project execution. In these seven years Eef worked for a large American project management company. Initially as a design safety engineer in a high-speed railway project and later as a foundation package manager and site engineering manager on a offshore wind farm project.

Recently Eef joined Ecofys to support the wind unit of Ecofys on offshore wind. Currently Eef is involved in project development for a Belgium wind farm project and project manager for the Ecofys offshore seaweed cultivation project SBIR.