Dr. Ken Denman
Chief Scientist Venus Network, University of Victoria and Environment Canada
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Ken Denman is Professor in the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences and Chief Scientist of the VENUS Coastal Network, as well as emeritus scientist at the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis of Environment Canada, all at the University of Victoria. He spent many years as a research scientist at the Institute of Ocean Sciences near Victoria and previously at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Halifax, both with Fisheries and Oceans Canada. He received his PhD in Ocean Physics from the University of British Columbia, studying the response of the upper ocean to meteorological forcing at Ocean Station Papa in the North Pacific. Ken's research interests include studying the dynamics of planktonic ecosystems and their role in the ocean carbon cycle in a changing climate. Most recently he has been modelling the effects of purposeful ocean iron fertilization to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and also the increasing acidification of the ocean resulting from the addition of carbon dioxide to the oceans as a result of the burning of fossil fuels. He has served on the Joint Scientific Committee of the World Climate Research Programme and on the Steering Committee of the Global Ocean Observing System. He was Coordinating Lead Author in Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for the Second (SAR) and Fourth (AR4) Assessments of Climate Change, on interactions between biogeochemical cycles and the climate Ken is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and a past recipient of the CMOS President's Prize, the DFO/CMOS Tim Parsons Medal for interdisciplinary ocean research, and the North Pacific Marine Science Organization (PICES) Wooster Award for contributions to North Pacific marine science. In his spare time Ken especially enjoys cycling and mountaineering.

Dr. Verena Tunnicliffe
Canada Research Chair in Deep Ocean Research, University of Victoria
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Verena Tunnicliffe is the Director of the VENUS (Victoria Experimental Network Under the Sea) project, Subsea Observatory and Professor and Canada Research Chair in Deep Sea Oceans at the University of Victoria. She was educated at McMaster University (B. Sc.) and Yale University, where she received her Masters and Ph.D.
Dr. Tunnicliffe's research focuses on the ecology and evolution of hot-vent animals and marine community history. She collaborates widely across many disciplines from geophysics to molecular biology and often does her field work under the waves, having undertaken more than 120 submersible missions to date. She is a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Canadian Healthy Oceans Network and the Governing Council of the Northwest Association of Networked Ocean Observing Systems (NANOOS), and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.