Aldo Chircop is a Professor of Law and former Canada Research Chair (Tier I), based at the Marine & Environmental Law Institute, Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University, Canada. Dr. Chircop chairs the International Working Group on Polar Shipping of the Comité Maritime International. He has published extensively on the international law of the sea, Canadian and international maritime law and Arctic shipping. Floris Goerlandt is an Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Risk Management and Resource Optimization for Marine Industries, based at the Industrial Engineering Department, Dalhousie University, Canada. He conducts research on the development, application, and validation of frameworks, techniques, and models for assessing, managing, and governing maritime transportation related risks, with applications relating to navigational safety, pollution preparedness and response, and search and rescue. Dr. Goerlandt has published over 150 articles and book chapters on these topics.

Ronald Pelot has been a Professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering at Dalhousie University, Canada, since 1994. Over the past two decades, he and his team have developed new software tools and analysis methods applied to maritime traffic safety (accidents), coastal zone security, and marine spills. Research methods encompass spatial risk analysis, vessel traffic modelling, data processing and pattern analysis, location models for response resource allocation, and safety analyses. Dr. Pelot has published over 50 journal articles and produced more than 100 technical reports. Claudio Aporta is a cultural anthropologist who has studied and documented Inuit environmental and geographic knowledge for more than 20 years across the Canadian Arctic. He is Professor and Canadian Chair, Marine Environmental Protection, at the World Maritime University, in Sweden. Dr.

Aporta has published extensively on topics related to Inuit knowledge and use of marine and coastal environments, Inuit spatial cognition, and Inuit knowledge of the sea ice.