Speakers
Born in France, Alain Mallet moved to the States at the age of 21 to attend Berklee College of Music where he is now associate professor in the ensemble and piano departments. He has toured and recorded with some of the biggest names in Jazz and pop including Phil Woods, Paul Simon, Paquito D'Rivera, Marc Johnson and Madeleine Peyroux. He is a critically acclaimed producer, particularly for his work with Jonathan Brooke. His original compositions have been recorded by jazz greats such as Gary Burton, Dave Samuels and Paquito D'Rivera to name a few. Recently he was working as pianist and musical director for jazz star Robin McKelle, performing with local Jam Band sensation ClubD'Elf and has been recording with saxophonist Andy Snitzer, flamenco singer Jose Merce, and singer Janis Siegel of Manhattan Tansfer. He's produced four tracks for singer / saxophonist Grace Kelly (Glamour magazine top music student in the US) and just completed a new recording of original music due out this Fall.
Burton Jones is aProfessor in the Red Sea Research Center. His research interests include bio-optical oceanography, physical-biological interactions, coastal processes, and coastal ocean observing systems. He has been involved in studying the dynamics of physical/bio-optical interactions in a variety of environments that include coastal California, the Arabian Sea, Japan/East Sea, the Adriatic Sea, and now the Red Sea. Recently, as part of the Southern California Coastal Ocean Observing System (SCCOOS) and research in harmful algal bloom monitoring, Dr. Jones has been involved in implementing a coastal observing system that includes fixed sites and autonomous vehicles. This includes participation in the development of an intelligent network of fixed and mobile nodes coupled with real-time ocean modeling capable of adaptive mapping and sampling strategies.
Professor Carlos M. Duarte holds the Tarek Ahmed JuffaliChair in Marine Biology with the Red Sea Research Center (RSRC) at KAUST. Duarte received his Ph.D. from McGill University, Canada, in 1987. His research focuses on understanding the effects of global change, including climate change as well as other global-scale impacts of human activity, in marine ecosystems, which he has studied across the world. Duarte has conducted over 15 polar expeditions in Antarctica and the Arctic.
Christian Voolstra is anAssociate Professor in the Red Sea Research Center. His research area is ecological and environmental genomics. His research aims to develop an integrated understanding of the ecology and evolution of the coral metaorganism (i.e. cnidarian host, dinoflagellate intracellular symbiont, associated microbiota) on a molecular level to predict adaptive capabilities and biotic response to environmental change. Coral reefs are biodiversity reservoirs and a significant source of nutrition and pharmaceuticals, but coral reefs face an unprecedented decline in the last decades due to anthropogenic impact.
Dave Haughey dreams of changing the way people think about the cello. By using the conventional instrument in unconventional ways, he is constantly discovering new avenues for performance, developing new techniques, and writing music that bridges genres. Dave's experience is multifaceted. He is an accomplished performer in myriad musical styles and genres, including Jazz, Folk, Traditional, Brazilian, Classical, Modern Improvisation, Rock, and his favorite, Other. Dave lives in Northampton, Massachusetts with his wife and son and teaches and performs regularly around the US. He also has taught and performed at venues and festivals in South America and Europe. He holds a Bachelor's in Classical Cello Performance from the University of Northern Colorado and a Master's in Improvisation from the University of Michigan. His primary teachers and influences are James Fittz, David Chew, Richard Aaron, Eugene Friesen, Geri Allen, Andrew Bishop, and all the musicians he meets and plays with every day.
Professor James Calvin is Vice President for Academic Affairs at KAUST. He began his relationship with the University as the Director of one of the KAUST Global Research Partnership Research Centers, the Institute for Applied Mathematics and Computational Science (IAMCS) at Texas A&M University. Professor Calvin has since served as a Visiting Professor, Acting Associate Provost and Acting Provost before taking on the role of Vice President for Academic Affairs.
Percussionist/drummerJamey Haddad holds a unique position in the world of Jazz and Contemporary Music. Haddad's musical voice transcends styles and trends, and the universal quality of his playing has attracted many international collaborations. Regarded as one of the foremost world music and jazz percussionists, Haddad is a professor at The Oberlin Conservatory and the Cleveland Institute of Music and taught previously for 18 years at Boston's Berklee School of Music. In 2012 Haddad was voted the Top World Percussionist in "DRUM Magazine" and one of the top 4 world-percussionists by the most largely read percussion periodical, "Modern Drummer” (July 2007).
Dr. Mark Meekan is a Principal Research Scientist with theAustralian Institute of Marine Science and is based in Perth, Western Australia. He is a tropical fish ecologist with interests ranging from the early life history of reef fishes to the ecosystem role and function of elasmobranchs. Dr. Meekan has published over 150 papers in international journals and is a committee member of the Australian Animal Tagging and Monitoring System (AATAMS), a project that funds and maintains networks of sensors for tracking of marine animals around the Australian coastline.
Seven-time Grammy® winnerPaul Winter has a body of work that chronicles his wide-ranging experiences in the musical traditions and natural environments of the Earth. The saxophonist, composer and bandleader founded Living Music as the recording context for his ensemble, the Paul Winter Consort, and his community of colleagues, which includes some of the world’s finest jazz, world, and classical musicians, along with notable voices from the great symphony of wildlife. With his various ensembles, Paul has toured the world, performing over 3,000 concerts in 52 countries. In recognition of musical and ecological work, he has received a Global 500 Award from the United Nations, Joseph Wood Krutch Medal from the United States Humane Society, the Peace Abbey’s Courage of Conscience Award, the Spirit of the City Award presented at New York’s Cathedral of St John the Divine, and an honorary Doctorate of Music from the University of Hartford.
Rory Wilson is a professor of zoology at Swansea University in Wales. He specializes in studying animals that are difficult to observe, such as albatrosses, penguins, sharks, turtles and deer. To achieve this he has designed and usedspecial ‘tags’ that he attaches to animals for the purpose of recording their every move in the finest detail. He has been awarded aRolex Award for Enterprise in recognition of this work and is listed in the BBC’s top 50 Wildlife Power Conservationists. To read more about Professor Rory Wilson,click here. To watch videos, click on the links below: -TEDxRiverTawe 2013 -Bacteria to Blue Whales: Predicting Animal Migration -Rory Wilson, Rolex Laureate, 2006
Dr.Victor M. Eguíluz is a Staff Scientist of the Spanish National Research Council at IFISC (CSIC-UIB), and Associate Editor of Advances in Complex Systems. His research focuses on the study of complex systems and on interdisciplinary applications at the interface between Physics, Biology and Social Sciences. In particular he addresses the micro-macro connection: how to link microscopic rules to macroscopic emergent phenomena. His current topics of interest include the characterization, modeling and structure-function (eg: social media, air transport network, hospital transfer network), the connection between social network and mobility, and the search for a unifying framework for human mobility and animal movement.
WEP team
Dr. Xiangliang Zhang is an Associate Professor of Computer Science and directs the MINE (http://mine.kaust.edu.sa) group at KAUST, Saudi Arabia. She earned her Ph.D. degree in computer science from INRIA-University Paris-Sud, France, in July 2010. Dr. Zhang's research mainly focuses on learning from complex and large-scale streaming data and graph data. Dr. Zhang has published over 140 research papers in refereed international journals and conference proceedings, including TKDE, SIGKDD, AAAI, IJCAI, NeurIPS, ICDM, etc. She regularly serves on the Program Committee for premier conferences like SIGKDD (Senior PC), AAAI (Senior PC), IJCAI (Area Chair, Senior PC), etc. Dr. Zhang was invited to deliver an Early Career Spotlight talk at IJCAI-ECAI 2018.
