Melita is a co-Director of CORDIO East Africa, based in Kenya. She has worked in coral reef and fisheries research, management and conservation in East Africa, elsewhere in the Indian Ocean and also in the Pacific and Red Sea. She has contributed to marine protected areas and fisheries policy development in Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Djibouti, Sudan, Somalia, Philippines, Australia, Fiji and Solomon Islands and globally. Melita was born in Tanzania, educated in Uganda, UK and Australia, and has lived in Kenya for 25 years. Her areas of experience include coral reef ecology particularly of fishes, marine protected areas, climate change, artisanal fisheries, community-based conservation and vulnerable species protection. She is a member of three IUCN Species Specialist Groups - Groupers and Wrasses, Shark (Vice Chair Africa), Snapper Seabream and Grunt (Co-Chair). She is an Associate Editor of the Royal Society Open Science Journal and on the Editorial Board of the Western Indian Ocean Marine Science Journal. Melita’s MSc and PhD were from Queensland University and James Cook University in Australia. She is a Senior Research Associate University of Oxford, and Adjunct Academic Staff Pwani University, Kenya.

Ken is a Professor Emeritus, Florida Institute of Technology. His focus is on the conservation science of coastal fishes and their habitats, climate adaptation policies, and applications of waterfolk knowledge in the southeast US and Caribbean. Approx. 75 research articles and book chapters, approx. 25 journals. With NOAA, the University of Miami, nonprofit conservation science organizations, and the private sector since the mid-1980s. Founded Sustainability Program at Florida Tech, 2010. Co-authored/edited books include Smithsonian Institution Press, Duke Univ. Press, and Springer Nature.  Ph.D., RSMAS, Univ. of Miami.

Dr Barry Russell is a former Assistant Director of the Museum & Art Gallery of the Northern Territory in Darwin, Australia, and was also Principal Scientist (Marine Biodiversity) with the Northern Territory Department of Natural Resources, and Environment. He has over 50 years research experience on the systematics, ecology and behaviour of tropical demersal fishes of the Indo-West Pacific, and has published more than 150 papers on the taxonomy and ecology of fishes. He is now retired but holds an Emeritus position at the NT Museum and is a Research Associate at Charles Darwin University in Darwin, Australia. He also is Red List Authority for the IUCN Snapper, Seabream and Grunt Specialist Group. His current research interests include the taxonomy and phylogenetics of lizardfishes (Synodontidae) and threadfin breams (Nemipteridae).