Staff Profile:
Ciaran Kelly, Fisheries Scientist.
What is your job title?
Team Leader – Fisheries Science Services.
What section and service area do you work in?
Pelagic Section, Fisheries Science Services (FSS).
Third level qualifications and where you obtained them?
- PhD on aspects of age, growth and reproduction of deep water fish off Ireland.
- Graduate degree in Natural Science with a specialisation in Zoology (Ba(Mod)Zoo).
What are your main responsibilities?
- I am responsible for a series of groups including; modelling and simulation team, data management team, and Acoustic surveys team.
- In addition I am the current chair of the ICES WGMHSA, and
- Member of the FSS advisory team and Irish delegate to the May ACFM meeting.
What are the most interesting aspects of your job?
My job involves a wide variety of tasks from managing people and budgets to quantitative modelling and scientific paper writing, all of which I find very interesting as they provide very different challenges.
Why do you think the work of Marine Institute is so important?
After the Rio conference and the FAO declaration on the code of conduct for responsible fisheries management, there has been an inevitable confluence between fishermen and fisheries managers as pressure on fisheries resources increase, and the question is asked, what is both sustainable and profitable. Both fishermen and fisheries managers turn to the scientists to advise on this issue. The Marine Institute is the only scientific voice which can provide answers to these questions from an Irish perspective.
What are your outside interests?
Travel, food, reading and the cinema.