Richard Sempéré, PhD, is oceanographer, marine and atmospheric geochemist and director of research at CNRS. He is currently Director of the Aix-Marseille University ‘Ocean Sciences Institute’. His own research studies concern marine and atmospheric carbon cycle in relation with global change, plastics, plastic additives, and organic contaminants in atmospheric and aquatic systems. He has been a member of several national governmental organizations and PI of several national/European research projects dealing with global change, and plastic pollution impacts on marine ecosystems including the European JPI-Ocean research project ‘Andromeda’ dealing with micro- and nanoplastics in seawater.

He has been previously co-PI of the research project MERMEX for the Mediterranean and partner of several European research projects including MATER, PLASTOX (JPI-O).

He is author or co-author of more than 140 scientific publications in peer review journals and supervised studies of numerous PhD and post-doctoral researchers. He is a member of the marine industry cluster ‘Pole Mer Méditerranée’ steering committee and is chair of the French network of marine universities and co-chair of the European Ocean Research and Education Alliance (EOREA).