On 1st January 2012, after many years of dedicated work,Catherine Mével completed her career as Director of the ECORD Managing Agency (EMA). The programme welcomed Gilbert Camoin (CEREGE) as the new Director. Amine Benchikh, who worked with Catherine as Executive Secretary, also left EMA. Milena Borissova took the new position of Assistant Director. The central office of EMA moved from the IPG in Paris to the CEREGE in Aix en Provence where Martine Tiercelin joint the team as Secretary. Patricia Maruéjol who has co-ordinated outreach since 2003, continues to work for EMA. The event is shown on the picture below taken on the roof terrace of the IPG on 5 January 2012.
From left to right: Amine Benchikh, Catherine Mével, Patricia Maruéjol, Milena Borissova and Gilbert Camoin.
Since the creation of the Consortium in December 2003 as part of IODP, Catherine Mével has been the driving force in ocean drilling at ECORD by leading the ECORD Managing Agency and the EC-funded ECORD-Net project. Recently, Catherine welcomed Poland’s membership to ECORD on December 14, 2011. Catherine was the main contact point with the IODP Lead Agencies (USA and Japan) as well as with the Associate Members. Beside her management responsibilities, Catherine has been a strong supporter of all ECORD initiatives, including the MSP expeditions and outreach and education activities. Catherine always encouraged ECORD scientists to take part in all exciting opportunities in IODP. During the challenging period of transition into the new phase of IODP, Catherine has prepared ECORD to enter the next ten years of the programme in collaboration with the US and Japanese agencies. Catherine took an active role in other scientific programmes (ICDP, DS3F, ERICON-AB) and communicated the news about ECORD to EC-funded networks (EurOCEAN, ESFRI).
Since 2003, Catherine was assisted by three dedicated Executive Secretaries: Svetlana Zolotikova, Rosa Bernal-Carrera and Amine Benchikh.
