On 9th January 2026 the Steering Group elected 2 co chairs.
We are happy to welcome Mr Adam Leadbetter and Ms Elena Tell as the co chairs to this new ODIS Steering Group.
Mr Adam Leadbetter has been involved in environmental data management for over 20 years: as a staff member at the British Oceanographic Data Centre; leading the data management team at Ireland’s Marine Institute; developing a sustainability data and insights function in a multi-national consumer electronics company; and most recently as a consultant to the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission leading the Decade Coordination Office for Ocean Data Sharing. He joined the ODIS Steering Group as a member state nominee from Ireland, having previously being involved with ODIS at the beginning of the OceanInfoHub project. He looks forward to working with the ODIS Steering Group and Operation Group to evolve ODIS to allow for data access and to build new data products to support the work of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission and the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable development.
Ms Elena Tell a PhD in Physics and Senior Researcher at the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO-CSIC), her work focuses on the management, standardization, and exploitation of oceanographic data, particularly physical and chemical data. Her research includes the generation of high-quality time series and climatologies, the development of automated data acquisition systems on research vessels, and the maintenance of the institutional tide gauge network. She has participated in 25 oceanographic cruises, many as hydrography lead, gaining extensive experience in in situ data acquisition and validation.
Since 2017, she has headed the Spanish National Oceanographic Data Centre (NODC-Spain), coordinating technical and scientific activities related to marine data management, quality control, and dissemination. Under her leadership, automated workflows have significantly reduced data processing times in line with international standards and FAIR principles. She actively promotes open data and represents Spain in several IOC-UNESCO bodies, including IODE national representation, while also contributing to training, outreach, and academic supervision.
The full list of Steering Group members is available on OceanExpert.