Ness holds a Biology degree from the University of York and an MSc in Tropical Coastal Management from Newcastle University. She has a broad range of experience in both tropical and temperate marine scientific research and management, with an emphasis on the study of complex socio-ecological systems.  Working alongside Defra and the Marine Management Organisation, Ness helped to pioneer new methods in marine spatial planning (MSP). Her interest in the ecosystem services approach developed as a result of her MSP experience, and she went on to manage a large interdisciplinary European project which developed a framework to value marine ecosystem services. More recently, Ness has worked with governments and intergovernmental organisations to address the high seas governance reforms needed to reduce the global impact of IUU fishing. Ness has been diving for over twenty years, learning – like so many people in the UK – in Stoney Cove, and has since been privileged to dive all over the world for work and pleasure. Highlights include surveying pristine reefs in the Solomon Islands, finally meeting hundreds of schooling hammerheads in the Galapagos, and diving the ‘shallow’ Lophelia reefs in Trondheimfjord, Norway. She is particularly obsessed with nudibranchs but generally enjoys getting up close to any invert! Ness also has a passion for wreck diving and has spent many happy hours getting rusty around the UK, Norway and as far afield as Chuuk Lagoon. Ness is a PADI dive instructor, a qualified trimix diver and has recently switched to CCR diving. She had to leave her beloved CCR behind on moving to the Falkland Islands, but is thoroughly enjoying  single tank survey dives on the stunning shallow coastal reefs around the Islands. She just wishes that all the sea stars didn’t look quite so similar!