SPEAKERS

GIANT PRAWN 2023 once again presents a global who-is-who of the research and industry supporting freshwater prawns with its panel of distinguished international speakers. The list is still being updated.



Robins McIntosh Executive Vice President, Charoen Pokphand Foods (CPF) Thailand

Robins McIntosh is Executive Vice President, Charoen Pokphand Foods (CPF) Public Company, Thailand. He has been involved in shrimp and prawn aquaculture for over 30 years, having lived and worked in Brazil, Hawaii, Myanmar, Philippines, Guatemala, Mexico, Belize, India, and Thailand. His projects have spanned the development of grow-out systems, shrimp feeds, and hatchery technologies. Robins was responsible for developing the first zero water exchange, intensive and revolutionary shrimp farm, i.e. Belize Aquaculture, Ltd in Belize. Prior to Belize he worked as a technical consultant to both Zeigler Brothers in the development of advanced P. vannamei diets and with several large farms in Guatemala, Mexico and Honduras. His initial work in shrimp aquaculture was with the freshwater prawn Macrobrachium, being employed as a researcher with Weyerhaeuser in Florida and Brazil. Shrimp was interrupted for four years as he took on responsibilities of developing and managing the algae to fuel program for the U.S. DOE (Solar Energy Research Institute). Shrimp and Macrobrachium projects in Myanmar brought him back to Asia, where he later was involved in the development and management of Thai Hawaiian Hatcheries in Thailand. Under his direction, hatcheries were modernized, genetic programs were initiated, and farm management was made more systematic and bio secure. He is also the CEO of Home Grown Shrimp, a US subsidiary of CPF focused on producing shrimp in indoor facilities in the USA.

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Patrick Sorgeloos Emeritus Professor, Ghent University Belgium

Patrick Sorgeloos has a PhD in marine biology and set up the Laboratory of Aquaculture & Artemia Reference Center at Ghent University in Belgium. Until his retirement as emeritus professor in 2013 over 350 Master (from > 50 countries) and 70 PhD alumni (from > 20 countries) graduated at Ghent University in the field of aquaculture. As Past-President of the World Aquaculture Society (WAS) and co-founder and board member of the European Aquaculture Technology & Innovation Platform EATIP, Patrick is a strong promoter of international networking in aquaculture and is still involved with many international aquaculture organizations. He was co-founder of the Ghent University spin off company Artemia Systems that is now operating under the name of INVE Aquaculture and belongs to Benchmark Holding. He received honorary awards in China, Egypt, Greece, India, Malaysia, Russia, Thailand, USA, and Vietnam.

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Krishna R. Salin Chair, Aquaculture Program, AIT Thailand

Krishna R. Salin is the Chair of AIT’s Aquaculture and Aquatic Resources Management Program, coordinating and supervising aquaculture research and education at AIT. He is the President of the World Aquaculture Society Asian-Pacific Chapter (WAS-APC) and Honorary Director of the intergovernmental Network for the Development of Agricultural Cooperatives in Asia and the Pacific (NEDAC), Bangkok. Dr. Salin is also a Visiting Professor at Shanghai Ocean University in China and an Associate Editor for the Elsevier journal, Aquaculture Reports. His research involves the development of cleaner aquaculture systems, innovative hatchery and farming techniques for giant freshwater prawn and marine shrimp, and climate-smart seafood production and consumption. Besides, he offers customized training programs and consulting services to governments, researchers, and businesses worldwide, based on the AIT's Sustainable Asian Aquaculture platform.

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Xuxiong Huang Professor, Shanghai Ocean University China

Xuxiong Huang is a Professor of Aquaculture at Shanghai Ocean University. He obtained his Ph. D. degree at the Shanghai Fisheries University (China) in 2005. His research interests focus on live feed and larval nutrition requirements for aquatic animals, and nutrition and ecological aquaculture of prawns. In 2021 Dr. Huang was elected as the Chairman of the Committee on Live Feed Branch, China Society of Fisheries. Currently, his group is working on the ecological culture technology of prawns based on resource recycling models.

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Julin Yuan Professor, Zhejiang Institute of Freshwater Fisheries (ZIFF), Zhejiang China

Professor Julin Yuan is the Deputy Director of ZIFF, in charge of an innovation team of Macrobrachium rosenbergii. He obtained his PhD degree in Hydrobiology at Northwest A&F University (China) in 2016. He is also the main member of Huzhou Station of China Shrimp and Crab Industry System Comprehensive Experiment Station. In recent years, he has been mainly engaged in research on the industry development and healthy breeding mode of M. rosenbergii. He has summarized and put forward the technical specifications of various models of M. rosenbergii., such as the cultivation mode of three crops a year in the greenhouse, the mixed culture mode of Mitten crab and M. rosenbergii, and the cultivation mode in the paddy field. His team is working on the research of monosex breeding, molecular design breeding, germplasm creation, the combining of culture mode and elite stock with breeding technique of M. rosenbergii.

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Malasri Khumsri Head of Aquaculture Research and Business Group, DoF Thailand

Malasri Khumsri is the Head of Aquaculture Research and Business Group, Inland Aquaculture Research and Development Division, Department of Fisheries (DoF), Bangkok, Thailand. She has more than 26 years of working experience with the DoF, and about 5 years working as the Fisheries Management Specialist for the Fisheries Program of the Mekong River Commission. She has is specialized in the fields of inland aquaculture, freshwater aquaculture systems and technologies, culture of economic freshwater fish, value chain of giant freshwater prawn, gender in fisheries, transboundary fisheries management, culture-based aquaculture, community-based fisheries management, fisheries co-management, socioeconomics, promoting small scale fisheries and international cooperation projects. She holds a PhD and Master’s degree in Aquaculture and Aquatic Resource Management from AIT.

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Giva Kuppusamy Founder and CEO - GK AQUA SDN BHD Malaysia

Giva Kuppusamy is the leading expertise in Aquaculture Biotechnology in the region. He also has highly refined expertise in Aquaculture biotechnology. He has also developed technology to produce 'all-male' Malaysian Giant freshwater prawn with high economic value. He is the Founder & CEO of GK AQUA which formed to commercialize 'All-male' freshwater prawn biotechnology which has won National Aquaculture Award in MAHA 2022 and Best Asean Startup in MBAN summit 2022. Recently, Giva is nominated as finalist for Ernst & Young (EY) Entrepreneur of the Year 2023 in Tech Category and represents Southeast Asia as the Finalist for Xtreme Tech Challenge 2023 hosted by World Food Forum.

In addition to his CEO role, Giva is the CEO of Sento Biotech Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of GK AQUA, dedicated to revolutionizing the feed industry with biotechnology and sustainability in mind. He is also serving roles as Patriot Biotech’s Co-Founder, an innovative company at the forefront of next-generation sequencing (NGS) applications, focusing on disease management in aquaculture, and promoting sustainable practices.

Giva holds BSc in Biotechnology and Master's degree in Sustainable Aquaculture with University of St. Andrews, Scotland. He is also a Commonwealth scholar.

Giva's commitment extends to various advisory roles, where he collaborates with institutions to foster knowledge sharing and industry advancement. His diverse career includes key positions such as advisory roles at organizations like Nabt app, Quest International University, AIMST University, Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin, University of Malaya and UCSI.

Previous to GK AQUA, Giva was Senior Manager in Crops for the Future (CFF), responsible in managing collaborative projects under the FishPLUS programme that focusses on fish-plant research interface for sustainable aquaculture. He was also a visiting fellow in University of Georgia, US. Prior to CFF, Giva was a Farm Manager with SRMM Sdn Bhd, a freshwater prawn farming company. During his tenure with SRMM Sdn Bhd, Giva developed first commercial farm for Macrobrachium rosenbergii in Malaysia.

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Kabir Chowdhury Jefo Nutrition Inc. & Maverick Innovation Bangladesh

Born in Bangladesh and trained in Bangladesh, Thailand and Canada, Kabir Chowdhury has more than 30 years of experience in the field of aquaculture and aquaculture nutrition worldwide. He has published or presented 100+ publications in leading aquaculture and nutrition journals, conference and symposium proceedings, and a book on environmental assessment guidelines for coastal aquaculture. Upon completion of PhD and a brief stint as post-doctoral fellow at the University of Guelph, Canada, he joined Jefo Nutrition Inc., a Canadian based global leader among non-medicated feed additive providers, as Global Technical Director for aquaculture. His expertise covers evaluation of novel plant proteins, and the effects of anti-nutrients and fibers on nutrient utilization by aquatic animals. He has also extensively studied the effects of various functional feed additives on freshwater and marine species grown in both tropical and temperate climates. He is also a co-founder of Professional Aquaculture Nutritionists (PAN) previously Aquaculture Nutritionists Network (ANN) along with Dr, Albert Tacon. Recently, he founded Maverick Innovation, a state-of-the-art research facility to evaluate novel ideas and technologies in aquatic animals, where one of his works has recently been awarded as one of the top 10 winners out of 7000+ participants at the Bangabandhu Innovation Grant (BIG) Award competition in Bangladesh.

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Bindu R. Pillai Principal Scientist, ICAR-CIFA India

Bindu R. Pillai is currently working as a Principal Scientist at the ICAR-Central Institute of Freshwater Aquaculture, located in Bhubaneswar, Odisha. After completing the masters in Mariculture and Ph.D (Maine Sciences) from ICAR-CMFRI, Kochi she joined ICAR-CIFA as a scientist in 1993. Since 2007 she has been working on genetic improvement of Macrobrachium rosenbergii (scampi) through selective breeding. In 2020 the new fast-growing strain of scampi developed through selective breeding was registered as ‘CIFA-GI Scampi®’ and she is now actively involved in the dissemination of the new strain through multiplier scampi. hatcheries. Besides this, she is also involved in another collaborative project with WorldFish. on ‘Life cycle analysis’ of major freshwater fish production systems in India and performance evaluation of genetically improved fish and prawn. She has published more than 80 research papers in national and international journals.

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Tran Ngoc Hai Vice Rector, Can Tho University Vietnam

Prof Tran Ngoc Hai has been serving as the Vice Rector of Can Tho University (CTU) since 2021 and is responsible for Scientific Research and International Relations Affairs of CTU. His key duties are promoting national and international collaboration, particularly among universities, industries, government, and association for education, research, innovation, start-up, technology development and application, and community services. He is now the coordinator for the program “Sustainable Development of the Mekong Delta – Outlook to 2045 (SDMD 2045)” (https://sdmd2045.ctu.edu.vn/), initiated and hosted by Can Tho University. Prof Tran Ngoc Hai obtained an MSc in Aquaculture from Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), Malaysia, in 2017 and a Ph.D. in Aquaculture and Aquatic Resource Management from the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Thailand, in 2005. With his major, he is interested in researching innovative and advanced aquaculture and sustainable development of aquaculture. Research, development, and application of technology on seed production and farming of shrimps, crabs, and prawns have been Prof. Hai’s main focus for more than 30 years.

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Thay Somony Director, Department of Aquaculture Development of Fisheries Administration Cambodia

Thay Somony is the Director of Department of Aquaculture Development of Fisheries Administration, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Cambodia. He is also serving as the Project Manager of Cambodia Aquaculture Development Program (CapFish – Aquaculture - 2019-2023) of the European Union, which is managed by AFD. Somony and his colleagues have devoted all-out efforts to promote and develop aquaculture research, education, development and extension in Cambodia through various development and research projects with UN FAO, JICA, ACIAR, CAFS, IRD/CIRAD. He received his MSc. in Aquaculture from Deakin University, Australia in 1998 and MBA in Foods and Agricultural Industries from Royal Agriculture University, England in 2002. Before being promoted as the Director of the Department of Aquaculture Development, he was the Director of Marine Aquaculture Research and Development Center, Cambodia (MARDeC). In addition, he had worked as project managers/coordinator in various fisheries management, rice field fisheries management and aquaculture development (both freshwater and marine) projects in Cambodia more than 20 years.

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Nadiah Wan Rasdi Universiti Malaysia Terengganu Malaysia

Nadiah Wan Rasdi is an Associate Professor at Universiti Malaysia Terengganu's Faculty of Fisheries and Food Science (UMT). Universiti Malaysia Terengganu awarded her a Bachelor of Science in Marine Biology in 2009 and a Master of Science in Aquaculture in 2010. Her first job was as a tutor at Universiti Malaysia Terengganu (KUSTEM) from 2011 to 2012. She pursued her PhD in Aquaculture/Planktonology Live Feed Culture at Flinders University, Australia, under the Universiti Malaysia Terengganu Academic Staff Training Scheme, and graduated in 2016. Nadiah was offered a position as a University Lecturer (DS51) in UMT's Faculty of Fisheries and Food Sciences in October 2016. She has been a senior lecturer at FPSM UMT for approximately 4 years (since 2 October 2016 to date). Plankton as a ‘living capsule' that can deliver nutrients to larval fish and shrimp in the aquatic ecology and aquaculture is her study focus. This includes studying the effects of climate change on plankton biology, variety, abundance, growth, and reproduction. Besides that, she hopes her research will help improve live food nutrition for larval fish and shrimp. Her work will significantly improve aquaculture production and management, as well as bring fresh results to applied science. Her research aims to help maintain food security. Nadiah's current WoS and Scopus H-index is 12 with a total of 447 citations. As an academician, her research work and knowledge transfer were presented at various national and international level. Furthermore, she has presented 9 oral presentations in her research field, where seven (8) presentations were presented at international level and one (1) at national level. Nadiah gained administrative experiences when appointed as the Head of Aquatic Research Programme in Institute of Tropical Biodiversity and Sustainable Development, UMT (2020-2022), as well as the Academic Club Coordinator for Revolution of Fisheries Club (REVOF) in Faculty of Fisheries and Food Sciences, UMT from 2020 until 2023. Nadiah believed that these two administrative roles in faculty and institute are the essence of her contributions throughout the 6 years and 9 months as academician, and she hope to serve and contribute more for UMT growth and development. Nadiah hopes to become a nationally and regionally recognized academic leader in the field of Planktonology Live Food Culture in the near future, through extensive research, knowledge transfer, and mentoring activities.

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Somprasong Netthip CEO, Lukkungsetthi Co., Ltd. (LST Farm) Thailand

Somprasong Netthip, CEO of Lukkungsetthi Co., Ltd. (LST Farm), is a highly experienced aquaculture hatchery expert with over 20 years of experience in breeding black tiger shrimp, Pacific white shrimp, and giant freshwater prawns. He has developed a process for producing all-male prawn seed in a closed system (SPF) and has improved the polyculture model for giant freshwater prawns along with short-cycle white shrimp. He is the 2021 national champion for freshwater prawns farming model farmers and the runner-up of the 1st place National Outstanding Farmer in Freshwater Aquaculture in 2022. He is also the current President of the Eastern Thai Shrimp Farmers Association.

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Ming-Wei Lu Distinguished Professor, National Taiwan Ocean University, Taiwan Thailand

Dr. Ming Wei Lu is Vice President for Academic Affairs, National Taiwan Ocean University. He is a distinguished figure in the fields of aquaculture and marine biology, brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise cultivated over an illustrious career. Hailing from Taiwan, Ming-Wei Lu's journey in academia, research, and leadership roles has left an indelible mark on the landscape of marine biotechnology and sustainable fisheries development. He has taken his expertise to entrepreneurial heights by founding two pioneering companies which supported by the Taiwan Government, focused on fish disease management and gender manipulation of aquatic animals, with a particular emphasis on giant prawns. Notably, Ming-Wei Lu has been recognized with a series of prestigious awards, including: Taipei Bio-tech Awards-Technology Transfer Special Award in 2022, 18th Taiwan Innovation Award in 2021, HaoShi Foundation-Potential Unicorn Award in 2021, IACE-Second Prize in 2020, Taipei Invention- Gold Medal Award in 2017 and the Executive Yuan- Medal Award in 2013. In essence, his career exemplifies dedication, leadership, and expertise, making a driving force in the fields of aquaculture, marine biology, and sustainable aquaculture.

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Shaokui Yi Associate Professor, Huzhou University China

Dr. Shaokui Yi is an Associate Professor of Aquaculture at the Huzhou University. He obtained his Ph.D. degree at the Huazhong Agricultural University (China) in 2017 and later was awarded a Postdoctoral Fellowship to spend two years at the South Centers of the Ohio State University. His research interests focus on genetics and genomics of aquatic animals with emphasis on genetic evaluation and utilization of aquatic germplasm. In 2023, He was awarded the scientist of germplasm resource and genetic improvement of Macrobrachium rosenbergii in China Agriculture (Shrimp and Crab) Research System (CARS). Currently, his group is working on genetic improvement of economic traits e.g., low-temperature adaptation, feed conversion ratio and DIV-resistance, in M. rosenbergii.

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Chantelle Hooper Aquatic Animal Health Specialist, Cefas UK

Chantelle is an Aquatic Animal Health Specialist working at the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) in the United Kingdom. She is also completing a PhD at the University of Exeter, researching host and pathogen genomics in emerging diseases of aquatic invertebrates. Prior to joining Cefas, Chantelle received a BSc (Hons) in Genetics from Cardiff University. Chantelle has been involved in a number of projects identifying novel pathogens present in the aquatic environment, including an RNA virus associated with mortalities of freshwater prawns in Bangladesh, and has recently published a review of the diseases in Macrobrachium rosenbergii. Chantelle has a keen interest in the use of genomic tools to better understand the role of both the genetics of the host and the pathogen in the emergence of disease – she has been involved in genome-wide association studies (GWAS) to determine regions of the genome that confer resistance to disease in oysters and has also developed molecular methods to be able to detect and discriminate between aquatic pathogens. Currently, Chantelle is the Country Coordinator for science delivery in India under the UK Government’s Blue Planet-funded Ocean Country Partnership Programme (OCPP), developing India-UK collaborative projects to address issues surrounding sustainable seafood. Chantelle is also leading the technical delivery of One Health aquaculture in Bangladesh under OCPP, aiming to build in-country capacity to produce sustainable seafood.

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Md. Lifat Rahi Professor, Khulna University Bangladesh

Md. Lifat Rahi is a Professor in Fisheries and Marine Resource Technology (FMRT) Discipline at Khulna University, Bangladesh. He completed his PhD at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Australia, under the supervision of Dr. David A. Hurwood and Prof. Peter B. Mather. Md. Lifat Rahi received the prestigious Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Award in 2017 from QUT for excellence in his PhD research. He is a geneticist applying modern genomics approaches to improve aquaculture and fisheries management. His primary research interests include aquaculture and quantitative genetics, conservation genomics, cytogenetics, and evolutionary genomics. Md. Lifat Rahi has published 42 research articles in peer-reviewed and high-impact international journals. The main focus of his research projects in Bangladesh includes i) Transcriptome sequencing for identifying specific candidate genes for growth and disease resistance in farmed aquatic crustaceans as well as fish; ii) Genomic basis of sex determination of commercially and ecologically important fish species; iii) Population genomics (genotyping-by-sequencing) of aquatic species for management and conservation of wild stocks (as stock improvement program particularly for the endangered species), and also for broodstock development (to develop climatically resilient and/or stress-tolerant lines) for aquaculture improvement; iv) Investigating the role of nutritional supplements on the expression of candidate/target genes for high-quality feed development; and v) Monitoring the status of aquatic pollution across the major coastal river systems (ecosystem health) of Bangladesh for food safety issue. Dr. Rahi is also applying the ecological farming approach to improve the production performance and nutritional value of freshwater prawns in Bangladesh. His recent interests include i) the application of environmental DNA (eDNA) technology for monitoring aquatic biodiversity (for establishing conservation hotspots) as well as abundance estimation of target species (in particular, the endangered species) and ii) Microbiome characterization for improving immunity and production performance of black tiger shrimp. Professor Rahi is always devoted to establishing strong links with international communities for research collaboration.

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Gang Jiang Research Scholar, Shanghai Ocean University China

Gang Jiang is a research scholar in Aquaculture specialty at College of Fisheries and Life Science, Shanghai Ocean University (China). He obtained his master's degree at the Shanghai Ocean University in 2021 and later continued to study for a Ph. D degree. His research interests focus on the development and growth performances of prawns in response to the environment. Currently, he is working on the regulation mechanism of sex differentiation in Macrobrachium nipponense to environmental factors, such as temperature.

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