Using risk-based approaches, Dr. Andrea Copping leads a research team that integrates laboratory, field, and modeling measurements into a coherent body of evidence to support siting and permitting decisions, and to understand the role that these effects play in technology development and project initiation. She leads OES-Environmental – an international project on environmental effects of marine energy development that shares environmental effects information to benefit from progress made around the world, under the IEA Ocean Energy Systems. She also leads projects that focus on fundamental research and development that support Blue Economy development, including ocean observations, aquaculture, and providing power to remote communities and islands, as well as leading the PRIMRE system of databases and information hubs that house all US marine renewable energy data. Dr. Copping works across several scientific disciplines to determine implications of human stressors on marine resources and ecosystems processes, working with stakeholder groups and resource managers to ensure that the available scientific information is accessible and available.

Professor Dato’ Dr Ir A. Bakar Jaafar FASc is currently the Vice President of Academy of Sciences Malaysia. Prof Bakar is a Malaysian Mechanical Engineer by training, environmental scientist by specialization, and ocean thermal energy technology development expert by current pre-occupation. He graduated from the University of Newcastle NSW Australia in 1973 and furthered his graduate study at The Institute of Environmental Sciences, Miami University in Ohio USA earning master’s degree in environmental science in 1976 and completing his doctorate in Marine Geography at the University of Hawaii Manoa in 1984.  He served the Professional Civil Service of Malaysia over 22 years: as Factories and Machinery Inspector 1973-74, Environmental Control Officer 1976-1995, when he took an optional retirement after having been the Director-General, Department of Environment Malaysia 1990-95. He was nominated and elected as a Member of UNCLOS Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf over three five-year terms: 1997-2002, 2002-07, 2007-12. Since 1 June 2012, he has been a Professor at Perdana Centre, University of Technology Malaysia, Razak Faculty of Technology, and Informatics, as well as a Founding Director and Research Fellow at UTM Ocean Thermal Energy Centre.

Miguel Angel Alatorre Mendieta received the 2023 Uehara Prize at the OTEC Symposium in Houston. Professor Alatorre has been instrumental in raising awareness and developing OTEC in Central America. He spearheaded a successful 8th International OTEC Symposia despite a worldwide pandemic, and also oversaw the establishment of Central America’s first OTEC lab. His contributions to the knowledge, use and exploitation of OTEC in Mexico through the training of human resources and as technical manager of the Mexican Center for Ocean Energy Innovation (CEMIE-O) of research projects “Detection of places to take advantage of temperature gradients with energy exploitation potential in Mexico to determine the feasibility of building an OTEC-type plant” giving as a product the maps of potential OTEC sites on the Mexican coast and “Development of prototypes and micro-plants for obtaining and storing energy from temperature gradients specifically designed to optimize processes based on the characteristics of national resources”