Dr Giovanni Bearzi
Tethys Research Institute
Dr Bearzi was born in Venice, Italy in 1963, and has carried out research on Mediterranean dolphins since 1986. He founded and directed a dolphin research and conservation program in Croatia that was awarded the Henry Ford European Conservation Award. He has trained dozens of research assistants and has supervised a number of students working on Mediterranean cetaceans. In 2003 he earned a Ph.D. in Zoology at the University of Basel, Switzerland, with a thesis on Mediterranean common dolphins and bottlenose dolphins. A board member of the Tethys Research Institute since 1990, in 2001 he became its president. He is a member of the World Conservation Union’s (IUCN) Cetacean Specialist Group and a consultant to the UNEP’s Agreement on the Conservation of Cetaceans of the Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea and Contiguous Atlantic Area (ACCOBAMS) and to the UNEP’s Regional Activity Centre for Specially Protected Areas (RAC-SPA).
Between 2002 and 2006 he taught cetacean conservation as a contract professor at the University of Venice, Italy. In 2001 he was awarded a Pew Marine Conservation Fellowship. Giovanni speaks Italian, English, some French and a few words of modern Greek. He is the scientific coordinator of the project and will be in the field whenever possible, but also needs to travel on behalf of the research and oversee its management, limiting his time on the water.
Joan Gonzalvo Villegas
Tethys Research Institute;
University of Barcelona
Mr Gonzalvo Villegas was born in Barcelona, Spain in 1972, and is a Catalan biologist whose main research interest is the study and conservation of cetaceans. He has been collaborating with the Tethys Research Institute since 1999, regularly participating in cetacean research done in Greece. Between 2000 and 2005 Joan was a member of GRUMM, a group for the study and conservation of marine mammals at the University of Barcelona, Spain. As a GRUMM collaborator, Joan was involved in a project funded by the Spanish Ministry for the Environment, focusing on interactions between bottlenose dolphins and fisheries, and in another EU-funded project to assess bottlenose dolphin population size and conservation needs in the Balearic Islands. He was also responsible for the coordination and experimental design of a project to monitor the population of bottlenose dolphins in the Ebro river delta and adjacent waters in northeastern Spain to evaluate the potential effects of two offshore wind farms’ construction.
Mr Gonzalvo Villegas' work as an Earthwatch principal investigator occurs in the context of his pursuit of a Ph.D. with the University of Barcelona, and he is in charge of logistical aspects and coordinating Earthwatch volunteers. In 2007 he became a member of the Board of Directors of Tethys. Mr Gonzalvo Villegas is a professional swimming teacher with experience teaching disabled children. He speaks English, Catalan, Spanish, Italian and some Modern Greek.
Marina Costa, born in Rho, Italy, holds a degree in Biological Sciences and a Master’s in Environmental Policy and Economy. She conducted studies on mollusks living on seagrass beds of Posidonia oceanica with the Milan Civic Aquarium. She has been in charge of the field work for a Tethys project focusing on dolphins in the northern Adriatic Sea. She joined the project conducted by Tethys in Greece in 2003, getting involved in dolphin photo-identification work, particularly in regard to dolphin mother-calf associations. In 2005 and 2006 she participated in a monitoring project on cetaceans in the Strait of Messina, Italy. In 2005 and 2006 she worked as principal field investigator with the Dolphin Habitat Conservation and Sustainable Use – a pilot research and management experience in the Egyptian Red Sea, where she was also in charge of training the rangers. In 2008 she joined the Cetacean Research and Rescue Unit in the Moray Firth, Scotland, working with Earthwatch volunteers with a focus on tagging minke whales. She holds a PADI advanced diving license and a nautical license. Marina can speak Italian, French, English and some modern Greek.