Joseph E. Aoun, a leader in higher education policy and a renowned scholar in linguistics, is the seventh President of Northeastern University.
President Aoun has strategically aligned the University’s research enterprise with three global imperatives—health, security, and sustainability. Northeastern’s faculty focus on interdisciplinary research, entrepreneurship, and transforming academic research into commercial solutions for the world’s most pressing problems. During President Aoun’s tenure, the University has realized a 189 percent growth in external research funding, along with approximately 1,500 patent applications filed by faculty and students.
Watch this New England Aquarium Lecture Series event featuring internationally acclaimed Sri Lankan marine biologist Dr. Asha de Vos, who aims to change how we think about and carry out marine conservation. Fresh out of the University of St. Andrews, and while working on a whale research vessel as a deckhand, she discovered a unique population of blue whales that inhabit the waters around Sri Lanka year round. This groundbreaking discovery—previously, all blue whales were thought to be migratory—and her research journey have challenged the existing marine conservation model and her view of it. Now, she strongly believes every coastline needs an army of local ocean heroes.
Asha de Vos is a marine biologist, conservationist, and pioneer of long-term blue whale research within the Northern Indian Ocean. She is also an Adjunct Research Fellow at the Oceans Institute of The University of Western Australia and a Marine Conservation Action Fund Fellow at the New England Aquarium.
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In 2017, she established Oceanswell, Sri Lanka’s first marine conservation research and education organization. Its flagship project—the Sri Lankan Blue Whale Project—is the first long-term study on blue whales in this region. Findings from this ongoing study have appeared in numerous research publications and are used to inform policy at the local and global level.
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She is the first and only Sri Lankan to have a doctoral degree in marine mammal research, the first Pew Fellow in Marine Conservation, and the first National Geographic Explorer from Sri Lanka. Asha is also a TED Senior Fellow, a Duke Global Fellow in Marine Conservation, and a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. In 2018, she was named one of the world’s 100 most influential and inspirational women by the BBC and in 2020 was named Scuba Diving magazine’s Sea Hero of the Year.
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