Elsa is currently the chair of the Fish Passage Steering Committee and has been working as a Research Associate at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. she conducts research on fish locomotion and behavior, particularly swimming kinematics during high-speed locomotion. She is also a senior research fellow at the US Geological Survey’ S.O Conte Research Center, where she applies her expertise to lead projects on fish movement ecology and fish passage at dams and other riverine barriers, using advanced telemetry and statistical techniques. Her work includes species such as Atlantic salmon, sturgeon, eel, and sea lamprey, as well as a variety of native freshwater species. She is interested in fundamentals of fish locomotion as well as in developing biological criteria for selective passage designs at barriers, which allows native species to access upstream habitats while impeding movements of non-native, invasive species.

Guillermo is a Freshwater Fish Ecologist with many years of experience studying salmonid behavior and habitat selection in freshwater and estuarine systems. His research interests also span to aquatic habitat restoration, land use impacts on fish habitat, integrated watershed management and fish passage. Guillermo has organized previous Fish Passage Conferences and served many times in the Steering Committee and Advisory Board.

Luiz is a Senior Researcher based at ETH-Zürich, Switzerland in the Institute of Environmental Engineering. He is the PI of the Ecohydraulics Research Group based at the Stocker Lab at ETH-Zurich. Luiz has over 17 years of experience assessing the impacts of hydropower on fish and developing mitigation solutions on a global scale. His research has focused on the design and assessment of fish passage, turbine entrainment and mortality, hydropeaking and larval drift. Related to fish passage, Luiz led and collaborated on several research projects in Brazil,  Australia and, most recently, Switzerland. 

Lee is a Professor and

Executive Director, Professor of Fisheries and River Management, Gulbali Institute

at Charles Sturt University in Australia. He has lived and breathed fish passage research for over 20 years and has worked in government, universities and private industry. His research has been in several broad areas, including fish passage and fish migration, dietary interactions among native fish species, the impact of human disturbance on aquatic ecosystems and, more recently, mitigating hydropower impacts on tropical rivers in South East Asia. Lee’s work has also focused on developing innovative methods for assessment and improving existing fish collection techniques. Much of his work is applied and has fed back into adaptive management strategies, including the development of state and national policy related to fish passage in Australia and South East Asia. Lee presently manages over $10M in research projects and has active global collaborations on fish passage.

Dr Jon specialise in the spatial ecology of freshwater and diadromous fishes in a range of aquatic environments using telemetry, sonar and eDNA techniques at the University of Hull.

Jon predominantly study the impact of anthropogenic activities on fish migration, including low head weirs, fish passage solutions, pumping stations, hydropower schemes and reservoir compensation flow releases. He is the lead of the REsearch and Development of fish and Eel Entrainment Mitigation at pumping stations (REDEEM) project, investigating the spatial distribution of fish and eels in pumped catchments, the processes that lead to entrainment, the effectiveness of existing technologies and develop innovative approaches to minimise entrainment and provide safe downstream passage.

Jon has also led investigations into catchment-wide migration of upstream-migrating adult sea lamprey and river lamprey, twaite shad, salmonids and cyprinids.

Xiaotao is mainly engaged in teaching and scientific research in the fields of ecological hydraulics and Yangtze River protection, focusing on fish protection research in hydropower projects; research results have been applied to more than 30 water conservancy projects

Frank Masese is a Senior Lecturer of Aquatic Science in the Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Science at the University of Eldoret, Kenya. His research interests lie primarily in freshwater ecosystems in fields of aqueous biogeochemistry and aquatic ecology where he is researching community ecology (invertebrates and fishes), energy sources and flow in food webs, land use influences on nutrients and carbon dynamics, water quality and biomonitoring, watershed management and biodiversity conservation.

Pao is a Senior Grants Manager working with the Open Rivers Programme. She conducted her master’s practices and thesis on fishway evaluation with PIT and Radio telemetry in Massachusetts while she received training in technical and naturalised fishway designs. Pao worked to develop and implement different projects at the World Fish Migration Foundation related to the recovery of migratory fish populations and the longitudinal connectivity of rivers. She has played a significant role in helping practitioners and other interested parties to start removing barriers in their countries.

Dana is an Environmental Technologies Manager working at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). She has 20 years experience working with fish and wildlife monitoring and research, and 10 years supervisory experience leading complicated field and lab projects. Much of her work has focused on migratory animals (songbirds and fish), threatened and endangered species, community ecology and the impacts of land use practices such as forestry, fire, and renewable energy development (hydropower, marine, and wind) on animal populations. She has been involved with work in many globally important areas for biodiversity. Her current focus is on technology development and manage projects with inventors of environmental monitoring technologies.

Raquel is a Senior Environmental Analyst working at CEMIG, a hydropower operator in Brazil. She currently coordinates several programs at CEMIG and is responsible for the planning, monitoring and assessment of Socio-Environmental programs related to environmental licensing.