Ceren Cerit Dindar is an assistant professor at Ankara Yildirim Beyazit University, where she is head of the Maritime Law Department and coordinator of the LLM program in maritime law. She earned her LLB from Ankara University and her LLM and PhD from Swansea University, where her research focused on legal issues concerning the delivery and redelivery of the vessel in time charters. Dr. Dindar is a dedicated senior researcher at DEHUKAM, having previously served as a research assistant at the Institute of International Shipping and Trade Law. Her recent studies are primarily concerned with maritime decarbonization. She coordinated a project titled “Legal Problems Relating to the Autonomous Vessels in Turkiye and Potential Solutions,” which was funded by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey. Dr. Dindar has presented papers at various conferences and has published articles in journals, including the Journal of International Maritime Law.

Marc Fialkoff is a member of the nuclear security research staff at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where his work supports countries developing transport security regulations for nuclear and other radioactive materials. Dr. Fialkoff also serves as a subject matter expert to the International Atomic Energy Agency and member States in the development of transport security regulations. His research investigates the intersection of nuclear security and maritime security with respect to floating nuclear power plants and civil nuclear propulsion, having published on this topic in the Tulane Maritime Law Journal and the Journal of Maritime Law and Commerce. Dr. Fialkoff serves as an adjunct professor of law at the College of Law of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where he teaches courses on nuclear law and national security law. He earned his PhD from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in planning, governance, and globalization, and his JD from Roger Williams University School of Law, focusing on maritime law. Dr. Fialkoff was a Fulbright scholar to the UK, earning his master’s degree in sustainability (transport) from the Institute for Transport Studies at the University of Leeds.

Maral Javidbakht is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Law at the University of Hamburg. Having defended her LLM thesis on international legal mechanisms for countering maritime terrorism in the Indian Ocean region, she joined the law faculty of Hamburg University as a scholarship holder in the Albrecht Mendelssohn Bartholdy Graduate School of Law. Her doctoral dissertation addresses the safety of MASS navigation in the higher levels of autonomy and the role of the flag State in this regard. Javidbakht’s research interests concern the international law of the sea, especially with regard to maritime security, the impact of technological developments on the current law of the sea framework, and the protection of the marine environment.

Richard L. Kilpatrick, Jr. is Visiting Professor of Law at William H. Bowen School of Law of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, where he teaches courses in contract law, international commercial law, and maritime law. He also serves as an academic fellow at the Centre for Maritime Law of the National University of Singapore. Having earned his JD from Tulane University Law School, he has practiced maritime law and taught at universities in Illinois and South Carolina. Professor Kilpatrick has published journal articles, book chapters, and essays covering a broad range of maritime and international commercial law issues. He is a member of the Illinois Bar and an academic member of the Maritime Law Association of the United States.

James Kraska is Charles H. Stockton Chair of International Maritime Law and Department Chair of the Stockton Center for International Law at the US Naval War College, and Visiting Professor of Law and John Harvey Gregory Lecturer on World Organization at Harvard Law School, where he teaches a popular course on the international law of the sea. Professor Kraska’s research is focused on the law of the sea, maritime security law and policy, and the law of naval warfare. He has served as a visiting professor at the College of Law of the University of the Philippines, a distinguished visiting professor of law at Gujarat National Law University, and a visiting professor of law at the University of Maine School of Law. He was Mary Derrickson McCurdy Visiting Scholar at Duke University Marine Laboratory of the Nicholas School of the Environment, and Office of the Chief of Naval Research Fellow at the Marine Policy Center of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. His most recent books are Disruptive Technology and the Law of Naval Warfare (with Raul Pedrozo; 2022), Emerging Technology and the Law of the Sea (with Young Kil Park; 2022), and Cultural Influences on the Law of the Sea (with Jessie Ryou-Ellison; 2025). Professor Kraska has served for over twenty years as a US Navy judge advocate, with extensive service in the Indo-Pacific region, including assignments as legal adviser and international law attorney for naval, joint, and interagency task forces; as Oceans Law and Policy Adviser to the Pentagon; and as Director of International Negotiations on the Joint Staff, where he was also a member of the US delegation to the International Maritime Organization.

Khanssa Lagdami is ITF Seafarers’ Trust Associate Professor in Maritime Labor Law and Policy at the World Maritime University (WMU) in Malmö, Sweden. She also serves as Academic Coordinator of WMU’s Professional Development Program in Maritime Welfare (MARI-WEL), which delivers a comprehensive overview of topics and issues related to seafarers’ welfare, bringing together world-leading experts on seafarers’ rights, maritime regulations, and welfare issues. In addition, she is a lead member of the Future of Work Program at WMU. Dr. Lagdami’s strengths lie in maritime labor law, human rights at sea, maritime security, and the future of work in the maritime sector. Her research and academic interests involve project creation, project management, capacity-building, and training (especially for developing countries). Dr. Lagdami has taught international public law, the law of the sea, and maritime law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Nantes in France. She earned her doctorate in maritime law from the University of Nantes. Her multidisciplinary profile includes an MSc in Maritime Affairs Management and an LLM in International Comparative Law from the University of Perpignan in France.

Raul (Pete) Pedrozo (Captain, USN, Ret.) is Howard S. Levie Chair on the Law of Armed Conflict at the Stockton Center for International Law of the US Naval War College. Prior to his retirement from active duty after thirty-four years of service, he has held numerous positions advising senior military and civilian defense officials, including as Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and as Senior Legal Adviser to the Commander, US Pacific Command. Professor Pedrozo has lectured extensively at military and civilian academic institutions and participated in numerous multilateral and bilateral negotiations, including at the International Maritime Organization, the Transnational Organized Crime Convention, and the International Civil Aviation Organization. He is the coauthor of International Maritime Security Law (2013), The Free Sea: The American Fight for Freedom of Navigation (2018), Emerging Technology and the Law of the Sea (2022), “The Newport Manual on the Law of Naval Warfare” (in International Law Studies 101, 2023), and the “Annotated Supplement to the Commander’s Handbook on the Law of Naval Operations” (in International Law Studies 102, 2024). Professor Pedrozo has an LLM in International and Comparative Law from Georgetown University Law Center and a JD from the Ohio State University College of Law.

Natalia Perez is a 2025 John A. Knauss MIT Marine Policy Fellow with the Office of Law Enforcement of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Prior to the fellowship, she completed an internship with the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources in Hobart, Tasmania, where she worked with the Fisheries Monitoring and Compliance team. She holds an MA in Law and Diplomacy from Fletcher School at Tufts University, where she specialized in marine policy and international communication and technology. Her graduate studies centered on marine conservation in the polar regions, monitoring of at-sea transshipment, and marine wildlife trafficking. Throughout graduate school, she has worked as a graduate research assistant with the Shared Waters Lab, contributing to the creation of the Transboundary Freshwater Diplomacy Database. She graduated from Arcadia University in 2019 with a BA in International Studies, and her research focused on maritime zones in the Mediterranean Sea and human rights at sea. In 2018, she spent a semester in Rome, interning with a human rights legal clinic that focused on migration by sea. In 2021, she participated in the Rhodes Academy of Oceans Law and Policy and volunteered with the New England Aquarium and Oceanic Global for the United Nations World Oceans Day in 2022. She is a term member of the Explorers Club and a member of the Task Force for the Conservation of Deep-Ocean Biodiversity with the Deep-Ocean Stewardship Initiative. Her research interests center on the connection between international affairs, ocean governance, international maritime law, and marine environmental protection.

Sindhura Polepalli is a maritime legal consultant at the Directorate General of Shipping in the Ministry of Ports, Shipping, and Waterways of the Government of India. Her work focuses on the development and implementation of the law of the sea and the international law of shipping at the national level, including the protection and preservation of the marine environment; decarbonization and climate change in shipping; illegal, unregulated, and unreported fishing; and seafarers’ rights and human rights law. Polepalli is engaged in national maritime legislation and policy drafting and international maritime cooperation for India, including at the International Maritime Organization. She is a member of a national committee to implement Maritime India Vision 2030, signed by the prime minister. Previously, she has served in the legal office of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg. Polepalli is engaged as a coauthor of the third UN World Ocean Assessment and is a member of the Pool of Experts for the UN Regular Process for Global Reporting and Assessment of the State of the Marine Environment. She is a fisheries global and regional processes specialist for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Polepalli has served as a visiting lecturer on international laws on maritime safety for the MA program in Maritime Studies at the University of Mumbai. She graduated from the Summer Academy of the International Foundation for the Law of the Sea (Germany), the Rhodes Academy of Oceans Law and Policy (Greece), and the Yeosu Academy of the Law of the Sea (Republic of Korea). Polepalli is a law graduate from the Government Law College, Mumbai, and has earned an LLM with distinction from the IMO International Maritime Law Institute in Malta, where she was awarded the Maltese Government Prize for Best Performance in the Law of the Sea.

Digvijay Rewatkar is a research associate at the Centre for International Law at the National University of Singapore. His work is focused on the role of the law of the sea in climate change discourses. Specifically, Rewatkar aims to develop a responsibility-centric paradigm for resource governance concerning minerals extracted through deep-seabed mining to facilitate a rapid green transition. Previously, he has worked at the National Security University of India on issues relating to national security and international law. Simultaneously, he has worked with the UN International Law Commission, where his research focused on issues such as sea level rise in relation to international law and the succession of States in respect of State responsibility. Rewatkar has also worked with the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva, developing policy on the intersection of climate change and conflict. He has attended the International Foundation of the Law of the Sea Summer Academy at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, and the Yeosu Academy of the Law of the Sea, securing a magna cum laude diploma. Rewatkar completed his advanced master’s degree in public international law at Leiden University, specializing in peace, justice, and development. In his free time, he can be found playing chess.

Murat Sümer is Nippon Foundation Lecturer in International Maritime Law at the IMO International Maritime Law Institute (IMLI), where he lectures on the public aspects of international maritime law and coordinates courses on the law of ports, the peaceful settlement of maritime disputes, and the delimitation of maritime boundaries. Dr. Sümer holds a PhD in public international law from Maastricht University. He has master’s degrees from both IMLI and the National Defence Institute. Before joining IMLI, Dr. Sümer served as a career diplomat at the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, including as Alternate Permanent Representative to the IMO in London and as Head of the Maritime Section in Ankara. He has published numerous articles on the public aspects of international maritime law in peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Sümer is a member of the UN Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea Pool of Experts; the OceanExpert directory of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO; the IMO Roster of Experts; the Maritime Law Association (Turkey); and the Turkish Bar Association.

Krisztina Tilinger is a space lawyer and an expert in international maritime law. She is an adviser to the Institute of Aerospace and Telecommunications Law at the Ludovika University of Public Service in Budapest and a PhD candidate at the Doctoral School of Law and Political Sciences of Széchenyi István University in Győr, Hungary. Tilinger attended the University of Pécs in Hungary, the Comillas Pontifical University in Madrid, the UniSpace interdisciplinary program in Hungary, and the summer school on high-tech IP issues at Stanford University in California. For ten years, she has served as a contract agent for the EU’s Public Administration (Brussels and Alicante), dealing with IP law and working on the quality of EU legislation. An experienced commercial and regulatory lawyer, Tilinger is currently engaged in academia. Her research focuses on the analogy in space law, maritime law, and air law. She regularly teaches space law, organizes national and international conferences, and mentors young talents in the fields of space, maritime law, and security.

Youri van Logchem is Associate Professor of Law (Law of the Sea and Environmental Law) at the Norwegian Centre for the Law of the Sea in UiT The Arctic University of Norway, where he is also Academic Director of the LLM program on the Law of the Sea. Previously, he was a senior lecturer at the Institute of International Shipping and Trade Law at Swansea University and a PhD fellow at the Netherlands Institute for the Law of the Sea at Utrecht University. Dr. van Logchem has published widely on law of the sea issues, including a monograph titled The Rights and Obligations of States in Disputed Maritime Areas (2021). His work has been cited before international courts and tribunals. Dr. van Logchem is a recipient of the Rhodes Academy Submarine Cables Award.