Gerald Hechter Taranto specialises in marine ecology and conservation, focusing on how marine systems interact with changing environments and anthropogenic activities. His core work includes better understanding the role of underwater geomorphic features in shaping deep- and high-sea biodiversity, habitat mapping and survey planning at large regional scales, and ecosystem modelling. A key aspect of his work is translating complex science into actionable insights for policymakers and other relevant stakeholders. In OceanSOS he is researching how open-ocean food webs at the NACES MPA might evolve under various climate and fishing scenarios as part of WP4. These findings will power an interactive "What-if" tool designed for stakeholders and the public. Additionally, he is contributing to the habitat mapping of the Milne Seamount Complex as part of WP2.

Sheveenah Sunnassee-Taukoor is a physical oceanographer and an OceanSOS postdoctoral fellow working within Work Package 1 (and collaborating closely across WP2, WP3, and WP7) at the University of Cape Town's Department of Oceanography. Growing up on a tropical island, she was deeply inspired by the legendary adventures of Cousteau and Thalassa documentaries, sparking a lifelong passion for protecting our oceans and marine life. Previously she double-majored in archaeology and environmental science, completed her Honours and Master's degrees in GIS, and completed a co-badged doctoral degree in physical oceanography from Université de Bretagne Occidentale (UBO) and UCT. Her research includes working on coastal upwelling along the inshore edge of the Agulhas Current. She has lectured at UCT, lectured during SEAmester expeditions, led WHIRLSchool (a floating oceanographic training programme), and has been part of 11 oceanographic expeditions. She serves as an ECOP representative for OceanSOS and recently led the successful deployment of a deep-sea OceanSOS sediment trap mooring array near the Africana Seamount aboard the R/V S.A. Agulhas II.

Dr Joana Brito is a marine scientist specialising in combining ecosystem modelling, spatial ecology, and marine spatial planning to support international and regional policy commitments towards biodiversity conservation and sustainable development targets. Her research has advanced ecological reference points for sustainable fisheries, identified drivers of change in open-ocean and deep-sea ecosystems, advanced indicators and thresholds to assess ecosystem status in a changing ocean, and informed the effectiveness of marine protected areas in the Atlantic against policy objectives. Currently, she also works to democratise access to, and use of, satellite environmental data, so that scientists, policymakers, NGOs, businesses, and local communities can use it to advance research, shape policy, and drive innovation. In the OceanSOS project, Joana supports WP4 at developing innovative ecosystem modelling approaches to better understand and predict how open-ocean food webs in the NACES MPA respond to the cumulative impacts of climate change and human activities.

Ross Williamson is a PhD student at the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS), primarily investigating dark oxygen production (DOP) and biogeochemical cycling in the Clarion Clipperton Zone (CCZ). This area outside national jurisdiction has been designated for deep-sea mining and as such Ross's research will also investigate the effects that mining activities have on the biogeochemical processes occurring within the benthic communities. With the OceanSOS project Ross will be joining research cruises in the North Atlantic to assist in the deployment of benthic respirometer landers, as well as microprofilers, and Aquatic Eddy Covariance systems to better understand the biogeochemical processes and flow of carbon through deep-sea compartments. This will provide a baseline for investigating effects of anthropogenic changes to deep-sea abyssal plain and seamount benthic ecosystems in the North Atlantic Current and Evlanov Sea basin (NACES) marine protected area (MPA).

Dr Vasco Müller is a scientist in the Climate Dynamics section at the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) in Bremerhaven and an OceanSOS postdoctoral fellow working within WP2. As a physical oceanographer, he has focused his research on mesoscale eddy dynamics in the North Atlantic and Arctic Ocean. His main interest is in understanding how these small, energetic features influence the distribution and transport of energy and of physical and biogeochemical properties such as heat, salinity, nutrients and oxygen, and how this will change in a warming climate. He combines data from multiple sources with numerical models to approach this complex topic from different angles. In the OceanSOS project, Vasco is responsible for setting up and running the historical and future physical and biogeochemical simulations using the AWI-ESM3 climate model and the coupled ocean/sea ice/biogeochemistry model FESOM2-REcoM, which provide the foundation for several other research work packages in the project.