Dr. Chris McOwen is an interdisciplinary scientist, whose research spans local, national, regional and global scales, combining experience in marine policy, ecology and biodiversity, ecosystem services, fisheries science and spatial conservation planning. McOwen’s role is to manage and provide technical oversight and scientific knowledge to projects at the science-policy interface. His main activities revolve around the analysis of coastal and marine biodiversity, environmental and socio-economic datasets. He supervises PhD and post-doctoral students in collaboration with the University of Cambridge. McOwen has a research background in marine biology, biodiversity modelling and spatial ecology. McOwen obtained his PhD from the University of St Andrews where he developed statistical models to identify species and regions of conservation importance. Prior to his current role, McOwen was a postdoctoral scientist at UNEP-WCMC and the University of Cambridge. In this role he identified the ecological, oceanographic and socio-ecological drivers of fisheries production, in order to predict patterns of resource utilisation and develop policies to exploit marine ecosystems more sustainably.