Affiliation: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

During his academic career, after obtaining a Master’s degree on the presence and distribution of the cetaceans in the Aegean Sea, he got a PhD in “Animal Biology”, focused on the impact of trawl fishing activity on fish demersal assemblage. From 2013 to date, under the general supervision of the Executive Secretary of the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM) of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). He’s responsible to plan, organize and oversee the implementation of i) discards monitoring programmes, ii) harmonized fisheries independent surveys-at-sea (i.e. both demersal and acoustic-pelagic scientific surveys), and iii) programmes to monitor the interactions between vulnerable species and fishing activities (i.e. incidental catch and dolphin depredation), providing also advise on the identification and test of measures to mitigate both discards and the interactions with vulnerable species (e.g. through the application in commercial gear of selectivity devices such as grids, separation netting, TEDs, etc.)