Paulo Yukio Gomes Sumida holds a PhD in Oceanography from the University of Southampton (1998) and a postdoc from the University of Hawaii (1999-2000). He has been a Professor of Oceanography at the University of Sao Paulo since 2000. During his career he has worked on various ocean basins, such as the North and South Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, North Pacific, and Southern Ocean. His research is currently focused on different aspects of deep-sea benthic ecology, including the study of reducing environments, deep-water corals and, fauna from deep-sea ferromanganese crusts.Angelo Fraga Bernardino holds a PhD in Oceanography from the University of Sao Paulo (2009), and has been a Professor of Oceanography at the Federal University of Espirito Santo since 2010. He is an expert in benthic ecology along coastal and continental margin ecosystems with a special focus on trophic ecology, functioning and conservation of deep-sea and estuarine assemblages. He is currently investigating benthic ecology and the function of organic islands in the deep-sea, such as wood-falls and whalebones, and the effect of pollution and carbon dynamics on estuaries and mangrove habitats Fabio Cabrera De Léo holds a PhD in Biological Oceanography from the University of Hawaii at Manoa (2012), and is currently a Senior Scientist at Ocean Networks Canada and an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology at University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. As a benthic ecologist he focuses on biodiversity, habitat heterogeneity and ecosystem function of deep-sea ecosystems such as submarine canyons, cold-seeps, abyssal plains and hydrothermal vents. During his career he has participated on research expeditions to the South and North Atlantic, South and North Pacific, and Southern Ocean, and to the Mediterranean and Tasman Seas. More recently, his research has been focusing on deep-sea ecosystem function and dynamics with respect to climate change and other human impacts using the seafloor and cyber-infrastructure of the NEPTUNE cabled observatory in the NE Pacific.
