Alex Aguilar

Alex Aguilar is a Spanish scientist and writer. He was born in Barcelona in 1957. He is Full Professor of Animal Biology at the University of Barcelona where he began his academic career in 1987.  Over the years, he has combined teaching, research, and leadership, serving as Vice-Rector for Innovation and Knowledge Transfer (2008–2010), Director of the Institute of Biodiversity Research-IRBio (2013–2016), and Vice-Rector for Outreach and Internationalization (2016–2020).

As an educator, he has taught extensively in the fields of animal biology and biodiversity conservation across the undergraduate programs in Biology, Environmental Sciences, and Marine Sciences, while supervising 16 doctoral theses and 36 undergraduate or master’s theses. Beyond formal teaching, he has been actively engaged in raising awareness about marine conservation, actively sharing knowledge through conferences, workshops, and training courses.

His research spans a broad spectrum of topics, with a primary focus on the demography, ecology, and management of threatened marine vertebrates, as well as the effects of pollutants on ecosystems. He has also delved deeply into the history of whaling, publishing numerous articles and several books, collaborating with museums, and curating exhibitions on the subject. He has led pioneering efforts in the field, from coordinating the investigation into the 1990 epizootic that devastated Mediterranean striped dolphins to leading the emergency response in Mauritania and along the Sahara coast when the world’s largest surviving Mediterranean monk seal colony suffered a mass die-off in 1997. With over 400 scientific publications and hundreds of conference contributions, his research has had worldwide coverage, with substantial projects conducted across Europe, South America, Africa, the Indian subcontinent and the Arctic.

Beyond academia, Aguilar has played an active role in international scientific and conservation bodies, including the IUCN Species Survival Commission, the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Commission, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), the Scientific Council of the Banc d’Arguin National Park, the Bonn (ACCOBAMS) and Barcelona Conventions, and has regularly advised the Spanish Ministry of the Environment. He is a member of the [https://www.racab.cat/?lang=en Royal Academy of Sciences and Arts of Barcelona], has served as Member-at-Large of the Society for Marine Mammalogy (SMM), , Board Member, Chair, and Scientific Advisory Committee Member of the [https://www.europeancetaceansociety.eu/ European Cetacean Society] (ECS) and has been associate editor of the journals ''Marine Mammal Science'' and ''Journal of Cetacean Research and Management''.

His contributions have been recognized with numerous awards, including the European Prize for Nature Conservation from the Ford Conservation Foundation (1992), the Vidamarina Award for the Conservation of Protected Species (2000), the [https://www.pew.org/en/projects/marine-fellows Pew Marine Conservation Award] from the Pew Charitable Trusts (2001), the Rey Jaime I Award for Environmental Protection (2004), and the Environmental Research Award of the Generalitat de Catalunya (2010).

As a writer, he is known for the novel ''El abrazo de Fatma'' and the non-fiction book ''Chiman'' on the whaling industry in Iberia. Provided by Wikipedia