MARIA LOURDES ‘DENG’ PALOMARES, PhD, is the Senior Scientist and Manager of the Sea Around Us research initiative.
Early in her career, Dr. Palomares explored the field of computer science, which led to several leadership positions in the realm of the aquatic data sciences, such as postdoctoral fellow at the International Center for Living Aquatic Resources Management (ICLARM) and Software Development and Database Scientist for the FishBase team in 1996. Deng's commitment to education is underscored by her role as an adjunct professor at the University of the Philippines (2010-2015).
In addition to managing the Sea Around Us and interfacing with its various partners, she is also involved in securing research funding to develop and improve the Sea Around Us infrastructure. She was nominated as FishBase Consortium Coordinator in 2017, which is associated with the role of Science Director in the Philippine NGO, Quantitative Aquatics, home of the FishBase and SeaLifeBase projects. She serves in the editorial boards of Frontiers in Marine Science's section on Marine Fisheries, Aquaculture, and Living Resources (since 2016) and the Philippine Journal of Fisheries (since 2018).
Dr. Palomares has published widely in the area of biodiversity information systems. For a selected listing, please view here.
Dr. Palomares holds a PhD from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure Agronomique de Toulouse (Institut National Polytéchnique de Toulouse, France).