Speaker: Dr. Philippe Cury
Emeritus Senior Scientist, Institut de Recherche pour le Dévelopement Durable, (IRD) France
Thursday, November 27, 2025
2:00 – 3:00 pm
CHEM 300
(N.B: This event will be held LIVE only)
Understanding patterns and processes in marine life is key to ecological studies and fisheries management. The ecological patterns that Dr. Cury tackled throughout his career were quite straightforward as they can be formulated into soluble questions: why is the recruitment of fish sometimes positively and sometimes negatively correlated with wind intensity? Is an ecology of individuals possible? What is the impact of forage fish on ecosystem dynamics? How tipping points can be identified and implemented in fisheries management? How many forage fish should we leave in the ocean to maintain birds and large predator populations? The emergence of those scientific questions and how they were addressed will be presented. How to get involved in decision processes and considerations on structuring a scientific career will then be discussed by addressing the objectives of a Sustainability Science: an engaged science that is active, collaborative, and connected to the real-world needs of communities and ecosystems.
On November 28, 2025, Dr. Philippe Cury will receive an honorary PhD degree from the University of British Columbia, in honour of his many years of exceptional research in marine ecology and fisheries.
Philippe Cury is Emeritus Senior Scientist working at IRD (Institut de Recherche pour le Dévelopement Durable, France) working in marine ecology and fisheries and the past IRD representative in Brussels for the European Commission at CLORA (Club des Organismes de Recherche Associés, Brussels) for six years (2015-2021).
After many years in research in the marine environment working with partners from Africa (Senegal, Côte d‘Ivoire, Ghana, South Africa), he was nominated as Director of the fisheries Institute based in Sète/France for 12 years (2003-2014) comprising more than 130 permanent researchers. He was the President of the Scientific Council of the Oceanographic Institute of Monaco for eight years (2013-2021). He was an evaluator at the ERC-LS9 LS9 from 2013 to 2017 and in 2018 (starter and consolidator), of the Marie Curie individual fellowships - H2020-MSCA-IF-2016 and 2017 as well as an evaluator of large European projects H2020 (COCONET, FARFISH, TRIATLAS…) and Horizon Europe (EcoScope, SeaWise).
He published has more than 170 peer-reviewed articles in the main international journals (Science, TREE, Ecology Letters….). He was the author of several books for a large audience ‘Une mer sans poissons’ published by Calmann-Levy and translated into Japanese, Chinese and Catalan, ‘the Ocean revealed’ published by CNRS Edition in 2017 and ‘Obstinate Nature’ published by O. Jacob with Daniel Pauly in 2021.
e received several distinctions among which, the National Scientific Prize Philip Morris obtained in 1991 (Life Science Prize), the French Oceanographic Medal obtained in 1995 from the scientific committee of the Museum of Oceanography of Prince Albert of Monaco, the Gilchrist Medal obtained in 2002 (South African Marine Award) and the 2012 Trophy for the best scientific achievement at Ifremer, the scientific achievement of the IRD in 2013 and the Tregouboff Prize of the French Academy of Sciences in 2014, Paris. He is Knight of the Legion of Honor and Knight of the Order of Saint Charles Monaco.
RSVP: Looking for Patterns & Processes in the Ocean: an obstinate quest
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