Ms. Sinegugu Banda (Mbense) is a PhD student at the Institute for Coastal and Marine Research (CMR) and the DST-NRF SARChi Shallow Water Ecosystems hosted at the Nelson Mandela University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. She also serves on the South African Network for Coastal and Oceanic Research (SANCOR) Steering Committee as the current Student Representative since 2017. At SANCOR her duties include science engagement, social media management and assisting with organizing student workshops and training. Sinegugu is also a member of the Western Indian Ocean Early Career Scientists Network (WIO-ECSN) and Youth for Marine Protected Areas (Y4MPAs) network. Sinegugu has strong aptitude towards coastal and environmental management, a field that is solely lacking in in South Africa. Currently, her doctoral research focuses on marine and coastal ecosystems services and how these services will change in response to climate change and sea-level rise. She is a recipient of the DST – NRF Doctoral Innovation and Priority Research Areas Scholarship as her research will provide input to South Africa’s current climate policies, so that future incentives in the form of payments for ecosystem services (PES) can be provided for the protection and/or restoration of degraded coastal vegetated habitats such as salt marshes and seagrasses. She is passionate about creating awareness on the sustainable use of ocean resources and establishing PES schemes from which rural communities living in close proximity to the ocean can benefit. Sinegugu is an All Atlantic Youth Ambassador supported by the Department of Science and Innovation through the EU Horizon 2020, AORA-CSA and AANChOR.

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