UPV faculty wins top prize in int’l fisheries confab

Assistant Professor Mary Grace Sedanza won first place in a competitive student award at the 2021 World Fisheries Congress (WFC) held in Adelaide, Australia, on September 20-24, 2021.

Sedanza, a faculty member of the Institute of Aquaculture, College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, UP Visayas (UPV-CFOS), bested seven other finalists for the Best Speedtalk Award in the WFC2021.

Speedtalk was one of the student awards competitions to promote excellent science communication. Other competitions in the Student Awards were the Best Oral Presentation and video competition. Sedanza participated in the three events sponsored by Harry Butler Institute and the Australian Society for Fish Biology (AFSB).

A member of the AFSB, Sedanza was awarded the WFC2021 Open Award and ASFB Best Speed Talk awards for her entry entitled “A family that sticks together, stays together: The Sticky Story of Oyster.”

The presentation was about her current research on oysters, specifically on a glycoprotein and its sugar-recognizing receptor that can help unlock the mystery of how settlement works in oyster larvae.

Sedanza hoped that the findings of her study could help increase the production of oysters “because more oysters mean more food for the people.”

“More oysters can help us fight against pollution and climate change,” she said.

Sedanza was also shortlisted to participate in the Workshop on Identifying Successes and Next Steps in Transdisciplinary Fisheries Research:  Perspectives from Early-Career Researchers along with Anne Brigette Ledesma, researcher of UPV-CFOS. The workshop was participated in by 30 career researchers around the globe.

Sedanza is currently a third-year Ph.D. student at the Faculty of Fisheries Science, Graduate School of Fisheries and Environmental Sciences, Nagasaki University, Japan.

The World Fisheries Congress is one of the largest gatherings of researchers, industry leaders, and managers from around the world to discuss the most recent developments in fisheries.

With the theme “Sharing our oceans and rivers- a vision for the world’s fisheries,” WFC2021 was a virtual event participated by 1200 participants from 61 countries. There were more than 200 student participants and more than 800 presentations. (Ms. Lenilyn Gallos, CFOS)