Project Director
Ratana Chuenpagdee is a university researcher professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John’s, Canada. Her research emphasizes transdisciplinary approaches to coastal fisheries and ocean governance, focusing particularly on small-scale fisheries, marine protected areas, community-based management, and food security. Dr. Chuenpagdee leads TBTI and the Canadian-based Ocean Frontier Institute Module I on informing governance responses in a changing ocean. Her most recent book ‘Transdisciplinarity for Small-Scale Fisheries Governance: Analysis and Practice’, co-edited with Svein Jentoft, was published by Springer in 2019.
Project Manager
Vesna Kerezi is a project manager and communication specialist who has been working with TBTI since 2013. In 2021, she became a project coordinator of the Ocean Frontier Institute (OFI) Module I that focuses on ocean governance. A geographer by training, she holds a MSc from Memorial University, Canada. Her interests lie in human dimensions of small-scale fisheries, social science communication, and knowledge mobilization.
Senior Research Fellow / Project Admin
Melinda Agapito is a research fellow with the Too Big To Ignore (TBTI) project. She obtained a PhD in Geography at Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John’s, Canada. Her PhD focused on developing a conservation decision-making method to help identify conservation areas. Her research interests include food security and conservation and she has experience with the conservation and fisheries settings in the Philippines and Northwest Atlantic (Canada). She currently works on small-scale fisheries research focusing on food security and ecological impacts of fishing gears.
