Meeting with a scientist

Séance scolaire sur réservation. Erik Zettler (Institut royal néerlandais pour la recherche sur la mer) sera en direct de son laboratoire, pour nous parler des ses recherches sur la pollution par le plastique dans les océans. Kim Van Arkel (Race For Water) sera avec nous dans la salle Paul Ricœur et animera le dialogue en anglais.

Erik Zettler is a microbial ecologist. He is currently particularly interested in the “Plastisphere”, the microbial community that develops on the surface of plastic marine debris.

From 1985-1994 he was a member of the Biology Department at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution where he worked primarily on open ocean picoplankton using flow cytometry. From 1994-2016 he taught and did research at SEA Education Association, as Science Coordinator, Professor, and Associate Dean. It was during research cruises with undergraduate students on the SEA sailing research vessels that he first became interested in plastic marine debris, and particularly the role of microbial biofilms on the fate of plastic in aquatic systems. Erik has participated on over 60 research cruises collecting oceanographic data including plastic marine debris in the Pacific, Atlantic, Caribbean, and Mediterranean. His research for the last 20 years has been facilitated by students and citizen scientists, and whenever possible, he escapes from his computer to work and teach in the field. Most recently he has taught summer courses in oceanography at Shoals Marine Laboratory in Maine, USA, and island ecology at University of the Azores, on the island of São Miguel...

https://www.nioz.nl/

Kim van Arkel, Scientific Advisor of the Race for Water Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of water. She is in charge of the scientific logistics of the Race for Water Odyssey and particularly the coordination of the plastics samples collected aboard of the Race for Water vessel for the « Plastisphere » project of Eric Zettler and his wife Linda Amaral Zettler at NIOZ.

http://www.raceforwater.com/