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Biography
Di is a deep-sea scientist at NIWA with a long career in fisheries and coral research. She has worked primarily on the biology of deepwater fishes such as orange roughy, spending a lot of time at sea on trawl surveys to collect data and biomass estimates for use in stock assessments. In the last 10 years or so her focus has moved to ecosystem research on protected deep-sea corals and other benthic fauna. This has involved managing coral research projects on species identification and distribution, age and growth, and ocean acidification impacts, along with compiling various deep-sea invertebrate guides and contributing to habitat suitability modelling studies. Di is active in supporting women in science, had a wide range of international collaborations, is a member of the international deep-sea coral and fish otolith scientific committees, and participates in Department of Conservation and Fisheries New Zealand working groups. Her latest research project is with Victoria University of Wellington on ‘Deep Sea Corals as Archives of Ocean Variability’.