Mel Austen is Professor of Ocean and Society, and Director of the Centre for Systems Thinking: Ocean, Land and Society at the University of Plymouth, UK. For more than 20 years she has been leading and delivering a broad spectrum of interdisciplinary research projects and programmes in a marine context within the UK, EU and internationally. She has undertaken and led research across the multiple and interacting sectors of the blue economy (e.g. renewable energy, fisheries, aquaculture, tourism, recreation and leisure, pollution) and the broader marine natural capital, ecosystem services and their benefits including the natural science underpinning these, their social and economic importance, the impacts and risks of their exploitation, and management and regulatory options. 

Mel aims to support policy development, regulation and management for sustainable ecosystems in the UK and internationally. Her research therefore integrates natural, economic, social, and public health sciences to examine and quantify societal consequences and policy relevance of changes to the marine environment and its ecosystems. 

Mel is currently is a member of the boards of the UK Government agencies Natural England and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC), was on the UK Government’s Natural Capital Committee, and served a 3-year term as the first Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK government's Marine Management Organisation; she is Chair of the Partnership of the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in North Devon, UK. Mel Austen was previously Head of Biodiversity at Plymouth Marine Laboratory and then Head of Science for its Sea and Society area which she originally developed and built up from 2011-2020.

Mel has led collaborative, interdisciplinary research in relevant projects, including UKRI GCRF funded research (£6.6m) in support of coastal communities of developing countries in SE Asia (GCRF Blue Communities), and the highly interdisciplinary EU project: Vectors of Change in Oceans and Seas Marine Life, Impact on Economic Sectors (FP7-266445, VECTORS) with 36 partner institutions from across Europe and a budget of €16.6 million, and a leadership role in UKRI NERC funded SWEEP which creates impact from natural capital related research in support of the economy and environment of SW England (SWEEP). She currently leads the UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in Sustainable Management of Marine Resources, which is training the next generation of transdisciplinary marine researchers and practitioners.  

Mel has a degree and a PhD in marine biology and ecology and has more than 120 peer reviewed publications spanning the different disciplinary and interdisciplinary areas that she has worked in during her career.

• Honorary Professor University of Exeter Medical School (2014-)
• Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology
• Member of the British Ecological Society
• Member of the Marine Biological Association of the UK

• Board member - Natural England (2023-)
• Member - Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) (2017-)
  
• Chair - the Partnership of the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in North Devon (2019-)
• Member - Land, Nature and Adapted Systems Advisory Group (LNAS AG) - a sub-group of Defra's Green Technical Advisory Group (GTAG) (2023-)
  
• Member - Natural Resources Wales (NRW) Evidence Advisory Committee (2022-)
• Steering Group member - Defra-MMO Marine Natural Capital and Ecosystem Assessment programme project: How marine natural capital approaches can be used to help deliver decision-making based on a more complete understanding of the ways in which humans depend on and benefit from nature (2023-)
  
• Member - JNCC Audit, Risk and Assurance Committee (ARAC) (2022-)
• Member - UK Government’s Natural Capital Committee (2018-2021)
• Board Member - Canadian Healthy Oceans Network (CHONe2). (2015-2022)
• Member - Strategic Advisory Group of the UKRI Sustainable Management of UK Marine Resources Programme (2020-2021)
  
• Editorial Board member UCL Open: Environment (2020-)
• Chair - EU Marine Board Working Group on Valuing Marine Ecosystems (2013-2019)
• Member - Expert Advisory Group for the Government Office for Science Foresight Future of the Sea project (2016-2017)
• Review Panel Member Nordforsk Bioeconomy Programme Call for Nordic Centres of Excellence in Advancing the bioeconomy transition in the Nordic region (2016)
• Member - UK Valuing Nature Programme Advisory Group (2015-2020)
• Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK's Marine Management Organisation (2010-2013)
• Co-Director of UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC, lead of 'Energy and Environment' Theme)  (2012-2014)
• Member - EU Expert Group on Marine Research Infrastructure (2009-2012)
• Member - Expert Panel for the National Ecosystem Assessment (NEA) (2009-2011)
• Member - North Sea Review Panel for the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (2009-2010)
• Promotion panel member - NERC Band 4-3 (2015-2018); UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (2019-)