Dr. Pierre-Yves Le Traon, an oceanographer, is the scientific director of Mercator Ocean and the research director at Ifremer.  He is in charge of the scientific direction of Mercator Ocean and of the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS). As part of his Ifremer activities, he coordinates the French Investissement d’Avenir Novel Argo Ocean Observing System (NAOS) project and chairs the council of the European research infrastructure Euro-Argo ERIC. He is member of the board of EuroGOOS and of the international Argo steering team.

Dr Wouter De Vriese, Scientific Director of the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ)