Cetacean Sanctuary Research

The staff of the Cetacean Sanctuary Research (CSR) Project

They are passionate about cetaceans and will all be happy to share their knowledge about wildlife conservation

The “Cetacean Sanctuary Research” team includes several skilled professionals with a principal field investigator, researchers, and research assistants taking turns on board “Pelagos” and other research vessels during the field season. One or two Tethys researchers plus several research assistants provide the necessary scientific and logistic services on board. They share their knowledge and experience with participants in a variety of ways, including teaching research techniques and giving lectures on cetaceans and marine biology. The researchers hold a degree in Biology or Natural Sciences, and have significant prior experience in cetacean research. Research assistants are usually University students doing their theses in collaboration with Tethys.

Project Management

Sabina Airoldi

Project manager / Science coordinator / Data Management

graduated in Natural Sciences, and started to carry out research on cetaceans in 1987. She has worked with the Mediterranean Fin Whale Program and has contributed to the founding

Caterina Lanfredi

Vice project manager / Senior principal field investigator

Caterina Lanfredi is a marine ecologist, involved in the conservation of marine mammals primarily in the Mediterranean Sea, for around 20 years.

Arianna Azzellino

Senior science coordinator

Arianna Azzellino is an associate Professor of Environmental Impact Assessment, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering (DICA), Politecnico di Milano and a member of the board of the Tethys Research Institute.

Maddalena Jahoda

Communications Manager, Senior Researcher

Maddalena Jahoda has been working with Tethys since the Institute’s establishment, being involved in both research and public awareness. She is currently the Institute’s communications/popular science manager and member of the Board.

Principal Field Investigators

Marina Costa

holds a PhD in Marine Biology from the University of St Andrews (Scotland, UK), and two MSc in Biology and in Environmental Policy and Economy from the Università Statale di Milano (Italy).

She boasts a broad and long background in marine biology, working with marine benthic and cetacean communities in several regions worldwide including Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea, North Sea, Red Sea, Southwestern Atlantic and Southern Oceans. Since 2002 Marina has been collaborating with the Tethys Research Institute studying abundance, distribution and habitat use of cetaceans in several projects (Venice Dolphin Project, Ionian Dolphin Project, Interreg III, Strait of Messina Project, and Istituto Superiore per la Protezione e la Ricerca Ambientale (ISPRA) Aerial survey for the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). Other experiences include collaborations with the Aquarium and Hydrobiological Station of Milan in Italy (1996-2003), the Abu Salama Society in Egypt (2005-2006), the Cetacean Research & Rescue Unit in Scotland (2008-2009), and the Compagnia del Mar Rosso in Djibouti (2015). Marina was project manager of the project ‘Sustainable Development in the Southern Egyptian Red Sea’, in Egypt with the Hurghada Environmental Protection and Conservation (HEPCA) from 2010 to 2012, and of the project ‘Dolphins of the Kelp’ in the Falkland Islands with the South Atlantic Environmental Research Institute (SAERI) from 2016 to 2018. In 2019 and 2020 Marina continued her collaboration with SAERI to design Marine Management Areas in the Falkland Islands and to develop the policy and legislative framework. Since September 2020 Marina is also working as freelance environmental consultant for the European Commission Joint Research Center (EU-JCR) providing review of marine ecosystem services and marine restoration methodologies. Marina’s academic and professional experiences have given her a set of skills ranging from data collection in the field to analytical and modelling techniques including estimating animal abundance using line transect and capture-recapture methods and describing their distribution and habitat preferences using GLMs and GAMs in GIS environment. Her professional interests are focused on cetacean conservation, development of environmental awareness, and capacity building to make research a tool for real conservation. Marina is an experienced boat skipper, accomplished field cetologist and advanced scuba diver. She can speak Italian (mother tongue), English (advanced), French (intermediate) and some Modern Greek and Spanish (basic).

Nino Pierantonio

Nino Pierantonio is associated researcher at the Tethys Research Institute where he serves as Senior Field Investigator for the Cetacean Sanctuary Research project and the Ionian Dolphin Project.

He has been a Member of the Board of Directors of Tethys between 2013 and 2016 and currently is part of the marine debris intersessional working group of the International Whaling Commission.

He has over 15 years of experience in cetaceans monitoring and research gained through working in the Mediterranean Sea and in the European North Atlantic and collaborating with a wide range of organisations at the national and international level in the governmental and NGO sectors alike. He has spent more than 1500 days in the field aboard oceanographic research vessels, sailing, motor and inflatable boats, and aircrafts.

Since 2009 Nino is part of a small team carrying out extensive aerial surveys in the Mediterranean Sea aimed at estimating the abundance and density of cetacean populations and other megavertebrates in the Region to inform conservation. Thanks to his long experience in aerial surveys and monitoring, in 2016 Nino participated in the third replicate of the SCANS monitoring programme in the North and Norwegian Seas and the Baltic Proper. In 2018 he was one of the team leaders for the aerial component of the ACCOBAMS Survey Initiative, a synoptic survey of the entire ACCOBAMS area aimed at improving our understanding of the conservation status of cetaceans in the Mediterranean and Black Seas

From 2012 he participates in satellite telemetry programmes for fin whales in the waters of the Pelagos Sanctuary for Mediterranean Marine Mammals and in the waters surrounding the Island of Lampedusa, in the Sicily Channel.

Nino has extensive experience in research methods including visual and acoustic vessel- aerial- and land-based surveys for cetaceans, individual photo-identification, behavioural sampling, radio and satellite tagging, photogrammetry and line transect distance sampling. He is skilled in the use and maintenance of a large variety of equipment including UAVs, digital cameras, velocity-time and depth recorders and satellite tags as well as static and towed arrays of hydrophones. Nino is proficient in the use of several computer software including dedicated research and analysis applications, GIS ad statistical packages and software for audio, video and image editing for both Microsoft and Linux environments. From early 2012 Nino is a certified JNCC Marine Mammal Observer, Passive Acoustic Monitoring Operator and BOEM Gulf of Mexico Protected Species Observer. He holds a motor boat and drone pilot licences. He is also a keen sportsman mostly enjoying his free time bouldering and running and whenever he can he enjoys woodworking.

Nino is Italian and he is fluent in English and French and mumbles some German and Spanish. For more information on Nino’s scientific contributions you can check his Research Gate and Google Scholar profiles.

Valentina De Santis

Valentina collaborates with the Tethys Research Institute within the framework of the CSR Project since May 2015, where she is in charge of data collection as a Principal Field Investigator, and data analysis.

She obtained a BSc in Biology at the University of Milan in 2015 and an MSc in Environmental Biology and Biodiversity at the University of Pavia in 2018, with a thesis on a critical evaluation of the different estimation methods of cetaceans’ abundance at sea, in collaboration with Tethys. During the university period, she attended many courses and seminars about biology, ecology and the conservation of cetaceans. Moreover, during her thesis period, she has had the opportunity to manage the CSR common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) photo-ID catalogue and, within the project, she became the reference person of this species. Thanks to this work experience, she has managed to acquire specific technical skills that allowed her to be involved, in 2018, in the “TursioMed” and “Dolphins Without Borders” (DWB) projects, both aimed to support the research and conservation status of common bottlenose dolphin in the Mediterranean Sea and in the Pelagos Sanctuary, with the collaboration of many national and international organizations and research institutes.

In June 2019, she has got a Research Fellowship at the Politecnico of Milan in the Environmental Engineering Department with involvement in the “QUIETMED2” project, an EU funded project that ended in January 2021, aimed to Good Environmental Status (GES) assessment on Descriptor 11 (D11 – underwater noise) of the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD 2008/56/EC), in the Mediterranean Sea Region. Since February 2021, she is involved in the “QUIETSEAS” project, also funded by the EU, which aims to support and enhance cooperation among the Member States in the Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea regions, to implement the third Cycle of the MSFD, providing methods and tools for D11. Thanks to these two projects, she has developed an interest and specific skills in the study of the potential impacts of anthropogenic activities on the marine environment and she became more aware of the importance of communication and collaboration among scientists, policymaker and different countries, to develop effective conservation strategies. Valentina is also very interested in the study of the factors that influence the distribution, habitat selection and behaviour of cetaceans species present in the Pelagos Sanctuary, for the purpose of their conservation. She is currently looking for a PhD. Valentina has a strong attraction for photography, videos, graphic design and drones, which brings her to be very interested in new technologies which allow doing research on cetaceans from a different perspective.

In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, she took advantage of the “lockdown” period to attend several online courses: basic, intermediate and advanced QGIS, National and European Regulations on drones, UAS Pilot training, Graphic Design and Video Editing (using different software such as Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and Premiere Pro), Instagram Marketing. Valentina has always loved the sea, cetaceans, swim, and these passions have brought her, in 2016, to explore the sea and herself from a different perspective: the freediver one. With the Apnea Academy, she attended the open and advance course of freediving. She speaks Italian and English.

Lorenzo Gordigiani

He is a marine biologist interested in cultural evolution of cetaceans.

Field Investigators

Eleonora Barbaccia

Master’s degree in marine science from the University of Milan Bicocca.

Sarah Brouder

Graduated in Zoology in 2020 from the University College Cork.

Eva Carpinelli

Founder and president of the ONG Nereide.

Anna Cavalieri

Graduated from University of Exeter with a Bsc Biological Sciences

Arianna Fornaroli

Attending a MSc program in Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology

Laia Garrobé

BScs in Mathematics (University of Barcelona, 2019) and in Physics (University of Barcelona, 2020).

Mario Gabualdi

BSc in Biology from the University of Milan

Marianna Marangi

Researcher in Parasitology at the University of Foggia.

Alessandro Messora

BSc in Biological Sciences at the University of Milan Bicocca (IT)

Lisa Picatto

Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Marine Biology at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland.

Jessica Picozzi

Master’s degree in evolutionary biology.

Livia Tolve

Master in Conservation and Evolution at Pisa University, in 2020,

Collaborators

Sara Alborghetti

obtained a Master Degree in Experimental and Applied Biology at the University of Pavia in 2018, with a thesis about sperm whale bioacoustics in the Mediterranean Sea,

Julia Gostischa

holds a bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences and a master’s degree in Marine Biology from the University of Pisa.

Gioele Passoni

is a conservation ecologist interested in exploring the complex interactions between wildlife and human activities

Vittorio Fadda

has previously studied and worked on micromammals at the Milan Museum of Natural History and at CNR in Rome.

Federica Salandra

graduated in Biological Sciences at the University of Milan and is attending her MSc program in Marine Biology at the University of Pisa.

Alessia Scuderi

Alessia is a southern Italian marine biologist. She holds her bachelor degree at the University of Messina

Morgana Vighi

PhD in Biodiversity from the University of Barcelona, Morgana holds a MSc in Marine Biology from the University of Pisa and a Specialty Master in Management and conservation of the marine and coastal environment from the University of Siena.

Veronica Zampieri

Veronica obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences at the University of Milan-Bicocca in 2019, with a semester spent in Bilbao at the University of the Basque Country through an Erasmus+ grant.

Other positions

Margherita Zanardelli

Project founder and former manager

has been Tethys’ first graduate student (Natural Sciences), with a thesis on the acoustics of the striped and Risso’s dolphins.

Adriana Geraci

Administrative secretary

graduated in Natural Sciences at the Pavia University with a dissertation on the feeding ecology of a group of cartilaginous fish in the Tyrrhenian Sea.

Skippers

Paolo Pinto

Skipper of "Pelagos"

Originally from Naples, he moves to Florence where he studies history and philosophy.

Roberto Raineri