Members of the expedition

Dr. Evgeny Pakhomov is a Professor at the Department of Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences and at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries at the University of British Columbia in Canada. A graduate of the Russian Academy of Sciences, he has more than 35 years of research experience as a biological oceanographer. His research focuses on understanding physical-biological interactions and ecosystem response to climate change, from the Antarctic to coastal British Columbia and from coastal realms to the high seas. His research interests span species ecology (plankton to fish), ecosystem structure, function and biochemical coupling. Dr. Pakhomov has disseminated his work in more than 250 publications.

Kirill Kivva, VNIRО.

Kirill graduated Moscow National University with a degree in oceanology. He participated in many marine and coastal research expeditions. His main areas of study focus on the impacts of climate change for marine ecosystems and fish resources, introduction of methods for processing climate data and using satellite’s high resolution images in fishery investigations.

Valeriya Soshnina graduated from Moscow Federal University with a degree in ichthyology. Since 2017, Valeriya has been working in the molecular genetic department of VNIRO in Moscow. Valeriya studies population genetics of salmon and Valeriya’s PhD dissertation is about the genetic diversity of coho salmon in Asian arial.

Valeriya will collect environmental DNA (eDNA) samples to study pathogens and other organisms in the North Pacific.

Vladimir has been working in TINRO since 2011. He has participated in many expeditions in Japan, Okhotsk, Bering, Chukchi Seas and the open waters of the Pacific Ocean. His main research focuses on fishery acoustics including the evaluation of the abundance of bioresources, their depth and space distributions, and their daily migrations in the water column. Vladimir also studies how vessel noise affects fish behavior. The specialists of the laboratory of fishery hydroacoustics work on the software designed for recognizing species with echograms. Vladimir will conduct hydroacoustic research during the expedition.

Alina Bezverhnyaya, Pacific branch of VNIRO (TINRO), Russia.

Alina is an elder specialist of the marine research department of the Pacific branch of VNIRO (TINRO). She graduated from Federal Far East University. She has participated in expeditions in the Bering and Okhotsk Seas and the open waters of the Pacific Ocean for salmon trawl studies. She is involved in molecular genetics, population genetics, species differentiation, and research on species forming’s processes.

Alexander Starovoytov has been working at the Pacific branch of the Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography (TINRO) since 1996. In 2002 he received his Ph.D. for his thesis on the marine biology of chum salmon.

To date, he has participated in more than 50 sea expeditions and he was Chief Scientist on 25 of these expeditions. He was the Chief Scientist during the last winter salmon expedition in 2009.

A.N. Starovoytov independently and in collaboration with colleagues has published more than 50 scientific papers in domestic and foreign periodicals.

Anton graduated from Far Eastern Federal University with a degree in hydrobiology. He has been working in the Pacific branch of VNIRO since 2011. He has participated in many marine research expeditions. He had been studying Crustacea Decapoda in the Russian seas of the Far East for five years. Trophic links in ecosystems is the main focus of his scientific work. Now he leads research on salmon feeding, trophic links of Pacific salmon, and species composition and distribution of plankton.

During the expedition his duties include identifying fish species and recording their distribution, population and biomass. Also Anton will collect samples of salmon for genetic stock identification and evaluation of their condition during the winter season.

Denis has a lot of experience in marine expeditions and research. Since 2008 he has been working as chief of the hydrologic group on more than 30 expeditions. He studies oceanology, hydrochemistry and bioproduction of the Far Eastern seas. Also he conducts ecological monitoring of coastal ecosystems, builds databases and conducts analyses.

Ilyas graduated from Kazan Federal University in 1989 as a biological specialist. Since that time he has been working in fishery science. He is a scientist with a lot of experience in marine and coastal research and has participated in many marine expeditions. He will conduct ichthyological research during the TINRO expedition.

Semen graduated from Far East Fishery University in 2017 with a master’s degree. Since 2018 Semen has been working at the Sakhalin branch of VNIRO. He has participated in marine expeditions and research on salmon spawning in the rivers of Sakhalin. He is also involved in parasitology research.

Vladislav is very experienced specialist. He has been working for more than 30 years on fishery vessels and scientific expeditions. He participated in the 2019 International Gulf of Alaska Expedition. During the expedition, he will conduct hydrological and oceanological work to study the environmental conditions salmon face during the winter.

Dr. Evgeny Pakhomov is a Professor at the Department of Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences and at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries at the University of British Columbia in Canada. A graduate of the Russian Academy of Sciences, he has more than 35 years of research experience as a biological oceanographer. His research focuses on understanding physical-biological interactions and ecosystem response to climate change, from the Antarctic to coastal British Columbia and from coastal realms to the high seas. His research interests span species ecology (plankton to fish), ecosystem structure, function and biochemical coupling. Dr. Pakhomov has disseminated his work in more than 250 publications. 

Rob specializes in integrated ecosystem studies to understand population and community dynamics in response to changing food availability and ocean climate. He has conducted studies throughout the North Pacific, from Alaska to California, Hawaii, and Japan. His current work focuses on food web studies and bioenergetics to understand recruitment and population dynamics in coastal and offshore systems and the impacts of environmental variability. His studies have contributed to ecosystem-based fisheries management, marine spatial planning, offshore renewable energy development, endangered species conservation, fishery bycatch reduction, and other human-marine resource interactions. Prior to working with NOAA, Rob was a professor at Oregon State University and a biologist at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Rob received a Ph.D. from Oregon State University, a M.S. from Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, and a B.S. from Humboldt State University.

Jacob is a PhD candidate at the University of British Columbia in the Pelagic Ecosystems Lab under Dr. Brian Hunt. Jacob is a marine scientist with an interest in trophic ecology, biochemical tracers, and the impacts of climate change on marine food webs. Jacob’s PhD research investigates stock-specific Chinook salmon marine trophic ecology off the BC Coast utilizing bulk/compound specific stable isotope analysis. Jacob aims to investigate both this and Chinook habitat-use with the aim to connect these analyses with regional food web dynamics and climate change. Jacob is also interested in using these tools to examine the quality of Chinook salmon as prey for threatened resident killer whale populations.

Elliott Price is a marine ecologist interested in pelagic food webs and consumer-resource interactions at lower trophic levels. In February 2022 he will begin his role as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of British Columbia to investigate the structure of zooplankton communities in the North Pacific. He obtained his PhD from the University of Liverpool, UK, where he studied the impacts of climate change on plankton communities in the Arctic. He achieved this using a combination of stable isotope analysis and DNA analysis to resolve the diets of key zooplankton species, and using multivariate statistics to resolve changes to the zooplankton and phytoplankton community composition in time and space. Prior to his PhD, he obtained an MSc in Aquatic Ecology at the Queen Mary University of London, UK where he investigated the influence of urbanization on stream food webs, and obtained a BSc in Conservation Biology from the University of Plymouth, UK.