With a background in marine research, environmental management, and international science coordination, Kathryn Berry, the newly appointed Head of the Science Department at the ICES Secretariat, brings experience in connecting scientific knowledge with the needs of policymakers, managers, and communities.
As Head of the Science Department, Berry leads the team supporting ICES international scientific network and its work with the Science Committee (SCICOM) and ICES leadership. She oversees the organization’s science programme, including expert groups, training, the Annual Science Conference, symposia, and externally funded projects. Her role also involves helping shape science priorities and strengthening the connection between marine research, advice, and decision-making.
Before joining ICES, Berry worked with the North Pacific Marine Science Organization (PICES), where she served as Science Director for the Basin-scale Events and Coastal Impacts project. In this role, she connected research institutions, fisheries managers, and policymakers across six countries.
Bringing perspectives together
For Berry, ICES provides the opportunity for international collaboration on a larger scale through the organization's extensive network of expert groups and scientific projects. “What genuinely draws me to this role is the chance to help bring people with very different kinds of expertise together on problems that don't respect any of our usual boundaries, geographic or disciplinary," she explains. “I'm excited to work in an international setting like this, where people bring different backgrounds and areas of expertise to the same problem."
Berry's own scientific interests reflect this breadth. She was born and raised in Canada, studied in Germany and Australia, and her field research has taken her to Panama, the Great Barrier Reef, Thailand, the Maldives, and Myanmar. Her career has included research on human impacts on marine ecosystems, particularly pollution, climate change impacts on coral reefs, co-development of marine stewardship programmes with Indigenous communities, and the effects of climate change on transboundary species and coastal communities across the North Pacific.
Creating value
“One thing I valued from my experience with PICES was seeing an international scientific organization engage in a period of self-reflection following an external review," Berry says. For her, the important lesson was the value of periodically asking fundamental questions about how an organization creates value for its members and stakeholders in a changing environment. She sees a similar opportunity at ICES: ensuring that the organization's science continues to respond to evolving challenges and remains useful to those who need it.
Strengthening connections
Looking ahead, Kathryn identifies ecosystem-based fisheries management as one of the major opportunities for ICES science. As interactions among fisheries, biodiversity, climate change, and other human activities become increasingly complex, decision-makers need knowledge that helps them consider these factors together.
“Another important opportunity is not only generating new science, but also continuing to synthesize and translate existing knowledge into forms that are accessible and useful for decision-makers, stakeholders, and communities," she says.
For Kathryn, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches will be central to this work. She believes that bringing people from different disciplines together requires more than simply putting them in the same room. A shared problem or framework is needed to help natural scientists, social scientists, and stakeholders work towards a common goal. She is also keen to see ICES continue developing ways to include other knowledge systems, including Indigenous and local knowledge and the experiential knowledge of marine users.
Looking ahead
During her first year as Head of Science, Berry’s priority is to listen and learn. “I want to spend time building relationships with my team and with the wider scientific community,” she says. “Supporting my team well is a priority for me from day one, not something that comes later.”
She is also looking forward to strengthening connections across the ICES scientific community, including supporting early-career and under-represented scientists through training, mentorship, and opportunities to lead.
As she begins her new role, Berry is particularly excited about the scale and diversity of the community she will be working with. “Getting to work with a scientific community this large and this good, on problems that actually matter.”
Kathryn Berry officially took up the position of Head of the Science Department on 10 August 2026 and is based at ICES Secretariat in Copenhagen, Denmark.
