Katherine Hawes (Chair)
Katherine Hawes
Katherine Hawes is a lawyer, educator and speaker who is passionate about the Marine and Aquaculture Industries. Based in Sydney, Australia she is the founder of Aquarius Lawyers and Aquarius Education.
Katherine has over 20 years’ of legal and business experience and her expertise lies in advising and representing organisations and businesses on issues pertaining to the marine environment. She is also a regular speaker at large international events covering topics such as aquaculture, marine and fisheries law, maritime security and marine resources management. Katherine is a Director of the World Aquaculture Society (WAS) Asian Pacific Chapter (APC).
Katherine holds a Masters of Law from the University of Sydney, Masters of Maritime Law, a Bachelor of Law and a BA in Communication. She is currently completing her Masters Adult Education.
Norman Grant
Norm Grant
Norm Grant is the executive chairman of the Seafood Importers Association of Australasia Inc., a peak body representing a sector that supplies 75% of Australia’s seafood.
Norm’s background is in the local seafood industry, firstly as an offshore fisherman, then as office bearer in numerous industry bodies involved in fishing, marketing and R&D. He has operated businesses in each of these sectors including, as a partner, Pacific Seafood Management Consulting P/L which undertook about 50 aquaculture-related projects in Australia and S E Asia during the 1990’s. However, he is probably best known as publisher/editor of Seafood Australia – a national trade magazine for the marketing sectors published between 1990 and 2006.
In recent years he has led regular trade missions to South East Asia to familiarize Australian government, industry and buyers with food safety and bio-security standards in aquaculture there, and to explore opportunities for technology transfer, joint ventures and manufacturing from Australian raw materials. He holds regular trade talks with governments in the Asia Pacific region.
Lance Lloyd
Lance Lloyd
Mr Lance Lloyd, B.Sc., M.Sc., has over 30 years practical experience across SE Australia, and in the Pacific Islands, in freshwater, estuarine, coastal and inland environments in fish and aquatic fauna ecology and management. He has undertaken hundreds of consulting projects on fish and/or their habitat, research projects in fish ecology, and has extensive experience in fisheries.
He currently in his second term as the Chairs of the Great Australian Bight RAG (Australian Fisheries Management Authority; AFMA), is a member of two other AFMA committees and serves on the Ministerial body, the Victorian Catchment Management Council. He has published widely in fish ecology, water management, wetland ecology, and environmental management, in scientific papers and management reports.
Lance has extensive board experience on a number of community and professional organizations. Previously, he was a member of the Fisheries Co-Management Council of Victoria (2002-2005) and was the inaugural Independent Chairperson of the Translocation Evaluation Panel (Victorian Fisheries) from 2004 to 2017.
In addition to fish ecology and fisheries management, Lance has played a key role in developing environmental water concepts, risk assessments, Ramsar wetland ecology and management, and strategic planning. Further details of Lance’s experience can be found at au.linkedin.com/in/lancenlloyd.
Roy Palmer (Executive Director)
Roy Palmer
Roy has been engaged in the seafood industry since 1972. He became involved in ‘industry issues’ in the early 1980’s when he was elected inaugural President of the Victorian Importers Association.
Since then he has engaged in many industry activities at various levels during which time he served as Deputy Chairman of Seafood Services Australia Ltd, and on the Boards of Seafood Training Australia and Victoria’s Fisheries Co-Management Council.
Roy is currently involved in many seafood activities, mainly with global organisations, which he sees as being important in respect of food security/safety, alleviating hunger/poverty, increasing seafood consumption, certification, marketing and training/education. See LinkedIn.
Janine Pierce
Ph D
Janine Pierce
Janine Pierce is an Adjunct Research Fellow and lecturer/researcher at University of South Australia and has diverse experience in vocational education and training, job creation programs, and worked as a business consultant and business operator over many years. In recent years she has become involved in a number of programs at University of South Australia at undergraduate and Masters level.
Janine has worked with ACIAR in Vietnam assessing impact of the oyster industry on poor community members, researched in China and recently in India, as well as in Australia. Her PhD was in capital assessment of communities and new industries which she has extended to a number of research projects particularly for assessing needs of the disadvantaged. Her passion is creating a better life for the disadvantaged and giving a voice to community members to reach decision makers. Janine is involved with AwF in managing the indigenous aquaculture site and is involved in other community organisations such as Rotary. Janine has a number of publications in journals and books and has particular interests relating to poverty alleviation, communities, climate change impact, and ethical businesses and government programs that operate to ensure balance between people, planet and profits.
Janine holds a Bachelor of Business, Diploma of Teaching, Master of Business and PhD (Community sustainability).
Emma Thomson
Emma Thomson
Emma Thomson is an environmental practitioner with over 10 years of experience in a diverse range of sectors including seafood industry development, and food and beverage processing. She is passionate about supporting business to successfully integrate environment and sustainability considerations for positive environmental and business outcomes, and has worked on projects across Australia and has experience working in Ireland and Canada.
Emma is also a keen advocate for building the capacity of environmental students and young professionals. She has previously held a range of positions on the Executive of the Environment Institute of Australia and New Zealand (South East Queensland Division) and the Bond University Sustainability Science Industry Advisory Committee.
Meryl Williams
Ph D, FTSE (Australia)
Meryl Williams
Meryl Williams has worked for nearly 40 years in Australian and international fisheries, aquaculture, aquatic resource conservation and agricultural research and development. Presently, she is engaged mainly in non-executive leadership positions involved with women and gender in aquaculture and fisheries, and information and science for sustainable fish production.
Among previous appointments, she was the Chair of the Commission of the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, vice-chair of the Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), member of the following: Scientific Steering Committee of the Census of Marine Life, Pew Marine Fellows Advisory Committee, founding Board of the Australian Fisheries Management Authority, Australian Maritime College Council, and Chair of the Australian Ballast Water Management Advisory Council. In recent years, she has led a number of international evaluation teams including: evaluating the World Bank fishery program, and FAO’s support for the implementation of the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries.
She was formerly Director General of the WorldFish Center (1994-2004), during which time she concentrated the focus of the WorldFish on eradicating poverty, improving people’s nutrition, and reducing pressure on the environment. She was previously the Director of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, Executive Director of the Bureau of Rural Sciences, tuna fisheries statistician at the Secretariat for the Pacific Community and fisheries biologist in the Queensland state government service.
She was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Science, Technology and Engineering in 1993 and awarded an Australian Centenary Medal in 2003. Educated at the University of Queensland and James Cook University, in 2010, she was named an ‘Outstanding Alumnus’ of James Cook University, Australia. In 2004, the Asian Fisheries Society elected her as an Honorary Life Member. With the Asian Fisheries Society, she initiated the long running series of women/gender in fisheries and aquaculture global symposia and maintains Genderaquafish.org, a key global website. She is also currently leading the Asian Fisheries Society project to develop an online information system for Asia-Pacific fisheries and aquaculture, called AsiaPacific-FishWatch.
Aquaculture Technical Adviser
Mark Oliver
Mark Oliver is the owner/CEO of LMC Training and has been in the seafood industry for 24 years. He has over 10 years full time experience in commercial aquaculture and over 14 years full time experience in delivering targeted training for the seafood industry. Mark is passionate about the sustainable growth of the global aquaculture industry and firmly believes that this will be primarily driven by a quality human resource pool.
Mark has a Bachelor of Science (Honours), a Graduate Diploma in Education, a Diploma of Aquaculture and vocational training and assessing qualifications. He is also the vocational training and education theme leader for the Australian Seafood Cooperative Research Centre, board member of the World Aquaculture Societies Asia Pacific Chapter, an International Specialised Skills Institute Fellow, North Queensland Trainer of the Year (all categories) and Certification Panel Member for the Sustainably Farmed Australian Barramundi Program.