K. Sunil Mohamed

Dr Mohamed took his master’s in marine biology in 1981 and PhD in crustacean physiology in 1990. He served in the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (ICAR-CMFRI) from 1986 working on molluscan fisheries and mariculture. He was the Head of the Division of molluscan fisheries in CMFRI for fifteen years. He has contributed to the understanding of Indian cephalopod biology and population dynamics. In mollusc mariculture, he has contributed to the growth of commercial bivalve mariculture in the country. He has interests in marine ecological modelling particularly its application to fisheries management. He was the leader of a team of researchers from CMFRI working on trophic modelling of Indian marine ecosystems and has modelled the Arabian Sea ecosystem off Karnataka and Kerala State, the northwest coast ecosystem, and the Gulf of Mannar ecosystem. He has published more than 300 research articles in international and national journals. Dr Mohamed was the Secretary of the Marine Biological Association of India from 2008 to 2018 during which time 3 international symposia on marine ecosystems (MECOS Series) were conducted under his leadership. He won the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for best PhD thesis from ICAR in 1991 and the prestigious TVR Pillay Aquaculture Award in 2011 for outstanding aquaculture research and extension. For 8 years, until 2019, he was a member of the Technical Advisory Board of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) London, which is a global non-profit organisation fostering certification and ecolabelling of sustainable seafood.

He served as a member of several scientific committees on fisheries management in the country and his recommendations led to several path-breaking regulations based on science such as the minimum legal sizes (MLS) for commercial species, formal fisheries management

councils (comanagement) etc. He is currently the Chair of the Sustainable Seafood Network of India (SSNI) which is a network of organisations involved with fisheries sustainability certifications. He has guided and mentored several master’s and Ph.D. students for their degrees in affiliated universities.

Publications