Supporting all activities, WP10 provides overall co-ordination for ATLAS and manages project reporting through a dedicated ATLAS project management office. WP10 will convene the ATLAS project Steering Committee and Advisory Board. It will ensure ATLAS liaises with relevant tranatlantic initiatives during the course of the project and respond to requests from the EC/EASME to opportunities that enhance project dissemination and synergy in support of the Galway Statement.

Meet the Team

Project Coordinator / Lead: J. Murray Roberts (UEDIN)

Murray Roberts is Professor of Applied Marine Biology & Ecology in the School of Geosciences at the University of Edinburgh where he moved in October 2016. Before this he was Professor of Marine Biology and Director of the Centre for Marine Biodiversity & Biotechnology at Heriot-Watt University. He studied Biology at the University of York before a PhD at the University of Glasgow examining nitrogen cycling in the Anemonia viridis symbiosis. Since 1997 his work on cold-water corals and deep-sea biology has taken him to sites off the UK, Norway, Ireland and the SE United States. Murray is senior author of the ‘Cold-water Corals’ (Cambridge University Press), a contributing author to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 5th Assessment Report and co-lead editor of a 2014 United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity report on ocean acidification. He is Adjunct Faculty at the University of North Carolina Wilmington where he was a Marie Curie Fellow 2007-09. From 2012-15 he co-ordinated Heriot-Watt University’s role in the Lyell Centre for Earth and Marine Science and Technology. The £30M Lyell Centre is a collaboration with the British Geological Survey and Heriot-Watt University that opened in 2016. He has led or participated in 23 offshore research cruises.

Wider roles include: Contributing Author IPCC 5th Assessment Report Chapter 6 ‘Ocean Systems’; Member Convention on Biological Diversity’s Expert Group on ocean acidification; Member Expert Panel United Nations Regular Process for Global Reporting and Assessment of the State of the Marine Environment, including Socio-economic Aspects; Member Pool of Experts of the Regular Process United Nations World Ocean Assessment; Member ICES Advice Drafting Group on Ecologically & Biologically Significant Areas (NE Atlantic); Founding member ICES Working Group on Deep-water Ecology; Member Clyde Scientific Trust (Scotland); Member Board St Abbs Marine Station; Editorial Board Nature Scientific Reports