Core Team

Mike is a conservation biologist with over 30 years of experience in Asia, Africa and Europe. He started his career undertaking and leading biological inventory expeditions in Uganda, Vietnam and Indonesia. He since specialised in leading large, complex, multi-country focused conservation programmes. For more than 18 years, he worked for WWF as the Conservation Director for their Greater Mekong Programme, Director of the Danube-Carpathian Programme and was for nine years the Lead for their global tiger programme, Tigers Alive. Mike left WWF in 2018 to launch a new partnership he conceived and founded focused on freshwater fish, SHOAL.

Georgie graduated in Marine Biology & Coastal Ecology, and has worked as a seagrass project assistant, and researcher for the BBC Natural History Unit, where she worked closely with remote fishing communities in Asia. She is a freelance underwater photographer, filmmaker, and science communicator with a deep-seated obsession for all things fish. She is also a keen hobbyist and loves aquascaping.

Michael has worked across a range of communications roles, including as a journalist in Tanzania, and marketing manager in a media agency. After spending the best part of a decade in the corporate sector, he joined an environmental NGO as a communications officer, where he felt he could better make a positive difference to the challenges facing the natural world. He joined SHOAL in 2020 and enjoys the challenge of drawing attention to freshwater species that have historically been overlooked.

Nathaniel is a conservation biologist by training, with research background in population and conservation genomics. While his doctoral work was conducted on avian diversification and evolution in eastern Indonesia, he has in the years since focused his efforts on the protection of life under the water’s surface, taking on aquatic-focused roles in conservation and research management in Mandai Nature, SEA Aquarium, and Mandai Wildlife Reserves, while freelancing in environmental consultation. In line with his love for birds and fish, he is an enthusiastic birdwatcher, diver, and underwater photographer.

Dr. Chouly Ou is an interdisciplinary conservation scientist specialising in freshwater fish ecology, community-based conservation, and capacity development. She has extensive experience working in Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake and the Lower Mekong River. Chouly has held roles at the School for Field Studies, BirdLife International, and WWF-US. At SHOAL and Re:wild, she focuses on mobilising conservation actions, building coalitions, forging partnerships, raising awareness, and strengthening local capacity to drive collective efforts for freshwater fish conservation.

Eleanor works as a contractor to support SHOAL’s communications activity. She has worked in arts marketing for close to a decade, bringing her experience to campaigns for the West End, regional tours, Edinburgh Festival Fringe and more. She joined the SHOAL team in 2022 to support their communications activity, hoping to use her passion for connecting audiences with great work to help shine an urgently needed spotlight on freshwater conservation.