Meet the Team

Fadia Al Abbar

Fadia is a PhD student at Wageningen University and collaborator at the University of Azores. The project started with her PhD and she obtained all the funding for this project. Fadia is the second drone pilot of the project and drives the boat occasionally. 

Lorenzo Fiori

Lorenzo is the main drone pilot of the project and maintenance controller. He is responsible for the permits and technical aspects of drone operations and manages the fieldwork related logistics. He is also the scientific advisor of the project. He has a PhD on humpback whales behavioural ecology obtained at Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand. 

Nuno Pimentel

Nuno has worked as a skipper in whale watching companies for countless years. He has been the main skipper for the project since 2020 and also takes on other tasks onboard such as catching the drone and contributing to social media. 

Laura Gonzlez Garcia

Laura is currently doing a postdoc at the Azores University on the MONICET whale watching sightings data platform and is the founder of Sail & Whale. Currently, she is a scientific advisor and logistics support of the project. She supervised several photo ID projects of common dolphins prior to this project, which was the start of the photo ID catalogue!

Filipe Ferreira

Look out from the whale watching company Terra Azul. Filipe has years and years of experience searching for cetaceans from land and since the start of Azores delphis project, he has searched and identified common dolphins from land and directed our vessel towards them.

Nicole Pereira

Look out from the whale watching company Terra Azul. Nicole has several years of experience searching for cetaceans from land and since the start of Azores delphis project, she has searched and identified common dolphins from land and directed our vessel towards them.

Anxo Cao

Anxo developed the logo and is a team-member on board. He helped during the feasibility phase of the project. Anxo is also a photographer in his free time. 

Sean O'Callaghan

Seán was a drone pilot for the project in 2021 and took photo ID images while not in the air. Now he is a collaborator with Sperm whale scale!