17DSBS Travel Award

With the support of the 17DSBS Travel Award, I attended the 17th Deep-Sea Biology Symposium in January 2025, hosted by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. This was the first time that the Symposium was held in Asia and my first time visiting bustling Hong Kong. It was a busy and exciting week and I’m very grateful to the 17DSBS Secretariat for supporting my attendance.

At the Symposium, I represented both the Deep-Ocean Stewardship Initiative (DOSI) in my role as Communications Manager, and the University of Western Australia, where I am an Adjunct Research Fellow. We held DOSI Day the day before the Symposium kicked off and it was great to see a lot of the discussions that started at DOSI Day continue throughout the week.

On the first day of the Symposium, I co-presented a talk titled ‘The decade that was for the Decade that is’ with DOSI Programme Officer, Dr Chris Barrio Froján, during the ‘Decade of Ocean Science Program Highlights’ session. This talk summarised the work the DOSI has been doing since it was founded over a decade ago in 2013 and during the current UN Ocean Decade (2021-2030). This was a great session of talks, and I particularly enjoyed learning about the variety of deep-sea Decade-endorsed programmes and projects, including the Digital DEPTH led by China Deep Ocean Affairs Administration, and how to get more involved with the Decade. There were so many brilliant talks throughout the week that it was often difficult to pick between the parallel sessions! I’m grateful that the sessions were recorded and I’ve caught up on a number of talks since returning home.

I also presented a poster on the “Deep-sea ecosystems of the Indian Ocean (>1000 m)” during Tuesday afternoon’s poster session. This was a great opportunity to network and discuss my research findings with other deep-sea scientists. I was excited to hear that the review paper on which my poster was based is being used to help update a description of the Indian Ocean region for the development of regional environmental management plans. The Symposium allowed for several networking opportunities like this, and the daily sit-down lunches provided good chances to meet and chat with senior and early-career researchers that I hadn’t met before. This was a highlight for me, especially catching up with colleagues and collaborators, some of whom I’d only ever met online before this Symposium. As DSBSoc President, Dr Michelle Taylor, reiterated throughout the week, this is a wonderful deep-sea research community, and I feel privileged to be a part of it!