Dr Simone PANIGADA

Chair of the Scientific Committee, ACCOBAMS

Chair of the Scientific Committee of ACCOBAMS and President of the Tethys Research Institute. Member of the Scientific and Technical Committee of the Pelagos Sanctuary, the Italian Delegation to the Scientific Committee of the IWC, the IUCN Cetacean Specialist Group and the IUCN Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force. He holds a degree in Biological Sciences and a Ph.D. in Environmental Biology. Since 1992 he has been involved in research and conservation of cetaceans. In 2001, he focused on anthropogenic impacts on cetaceans, and plays the role of ship strike coordinator for the IWC. Since 2009, he has been involved as project manager and PI for aerial surveys to estimate abundance and density of cetaceans in the central Mediterranean. Scientific Coordinator of the ACCOBAMS Survey Initiative (ASI), a large scale survey (aerial and ship based) to  estimate cetaceans’ and large vertebrates’ density and abundance over the entire Mediterranean Basin.