About
Shanee Stopnitzky
Founder and Director
Shanee is a complex systems marine ecologist and marine technologist with postgraduate education from the Santa Fe Institute, UC Santa Cruz, and the University of Queensland.
She has worked as a researcher in the academic, public, private, and NGO sectors for nearly 20 years, and has 11 years experience doing applied research in environmental impact assessment and marine impact mitigation for various organizations.
Shanee has been on the founding teams of several community-based organizations including Counter Culture Labs, an open science laboratory, and founded the Community Submersibles Project, an initiative to democratize ocean exploration.
She has also led several marine engineering projects including a custom artboat, two submarines, and a completely novel underwater habitat design. Shanee is the co-founder and director of Prism, an underwater habitat project that will allow people from diverse backgrounds to experience living in a coral reef. She is currently the only female submersible owner in the world.
Paul Moorhouse
Chief Engineer
Paul Moorhouse is the preeminent subsea engineer, with more experience designing underwater vehicles and habitats than anyone on Earth. He brings 40 years of experience engineering underwater technologies that must work the first time and every time in harsh and remote marine environments, and is the leading engineer for both prototypes and production scale underwater vehicles and habitats.
Anselm Hook
Director of Technology
Anselm Hook is a developer and technology researcher who is interested in digital simulations, social cartography, hardware-software interfaces, real time brokerages and markets, and other tools that help create increased visibility and communication other across complex landscapes. Anselm was a mentor at the MacArthur Foundation-funded Producers Institute for New Media Technologies and at Sundance New Frontiers Story Lab. He is currently working on digital twin technology for environmental simulations.
Stephan Munch
Researcher
Dr. Stephan Munch is a mathematical ecologist and works on a broad range of topics with applications to climate resilience and natural resource management. His areas of expertise include nonlinear dynamics, statistical modeling, contemporary evolution, and transgenerational plasticity. He is currently focused on building robust tools for ecosystem management, particularly those with structural uncertainty, and developing analytical tools that don’t rely on having a complete and detailed description of the system.
Scott Countryman
Director of Operations
Scott Countryman is the founder of the Coral Triangle Conservancy and Deep 6 Carbon. For the past ten years, he led his NGO to help establish marine protected areas as well as develop technologies and programs to monitor, restock, and rehabilitate coral reefs. Prior to becoming a full time marine conservationist, Scott was the Founder and Chief Executive at PeopleSupport Philippines and Digital Media Exchange. He is a licensed US Coast Guard Ship’s Captain, boat builder promoting electric propulsion systems, holds an MBA from USC, and envisions a future where commercial activity in our oceans is carbon negative and regenerative to marine ecosystems.
Collaborators and Advisors
A complex and ambitious project like this one requires a team of brilliant minds from various disciplines and sectors.
It also needs the guiding light of an independent, rigorous, and transparent advisory team who are experts in their fields, represent different stakeholders locally and globally, and who will help us make sound decisions for the collective good.
We are in the process of growing our scientific and advisory teams. If you are interested in joining us, please get in touch!
Edwin Chiu
Electrical Engineer
Edwin began his career at SpaceX where he designed the Falcon 9 engine controller, as well as control electronics on Dragon, Crew Dragon, Falcon 1, Falcon Heavy, Grasshopper, and F9R-dev. He co-founded Signal Laboratories, a telecommunications technology company using radio telescope techniques to enable long range communication in cell phones. He then designed the power, control, and life-support systems for the DeepFlight Super Falcon 3s, a three-person submersible for research and tourism. Edwin has taken up full-time consulting, working with a variety of clients in climate change and methane mitigation, aerospace, transportation, and CRISPR genomics. During the COVID Pandemic, Edwin and his colleagues founded RespiraWorks to create an open-source and freely-licensed, fully-functional ICU ventilator. They currently have over 200 volunteers in 11 countries.
