Prof Dr ir Veerle Huvenne

Prof Dr ir Veerle Huvenne has >25 years of experience in the fields of marine habitat mapping and sediment dynamics, with the aim to develop a full-systems understanding of complex deep-sea environments such as submarine canyons, cold-water coral settings, hydrothermal vents and seamounts.  Her multidisciplinary approach combines aspects of marine ecology, biology, geology, sedimentology, geophysics, remote sensing, spatial & geostatistics and GIS for the holistic study of these environments and their governing processes. She is particularly interested in the study of long-term change in those ecosystems, with the aim to underpin the designation and monitoring of (deep-water) MPAs. This includes quantifying the impact of both natural and anthropogenic disturbance, as well as habitat resilience and recovery and the development of adequate monitoring strategies. 

Prof Huvenne has participated in a large number of EU and UK funded projects, and was Principal Investigator on the ERC Starting Grant CODEMAP. She currently leads workpackages in the NERC programmes AtlantiS, SMARTEX and ECOWind-ACCELERATE with the aim to develop robust habitat mapping and seafloor monitoring approaches to support the sustainable management of our marine environment. Within the Horizon Europe project REDRESS she also investigates the restoration of deep-sea ecosystems.  

Prof Huvenne also acts as one of the two Chief Scientists of the Marine Autonomous and Robotic Systems facility at NOC (MARS). She has extensive sea-going expertise (>40 international expeditions, >950 days at sea), often working with new technologies and marine robotic systems such as AUVs and ROVs, and working closely with the engineering teams on the development of new sensor or vehicle capabilities. 

Main fields of research:  submarine canyons, cold-water corals, marine habitat mapping, human impacts, disturbance & recovery, sediment dynamics