Simon Bélanger,

Department of biology, chemistry and geography, Université du Québec à Rimouski (UQAR)

Simon Bélanger graduated from the University of Sherbrooke (Quebec, Canada) in Physical Geography (B. Sc .; 1998) and remote sensing (M. Sc .; 2001). He worked for two years (2001-2003) on the MERIS sensors onboard the ENVISAT Earth Observation Satellite of the European Space Agency (ESA) at ESRIN in Frascati, Italy and at ACRI-st, a private company located in Sophia Antipolis, France. In November 2006, Dr Bélanger earned PhD in environmental sciences from the Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris VI) for his thesis entitled “Impacts of climate change on carbon flows stimulated by light in Arctic Ocean: quantification and monitoring of the photo-oxidation of dissolved organic matter in the Beaufort sea by remote sensing”. He works as professor at UQAR since December 2006, where he established the AQUATEL laboratory (http://aquatel.uqar.ca/index.html) and developed a research program focusing on the study of biogeochemical fluxes in coastal regions of the Arctic and sub-Arctic from satellite observations. He is a member of the Scientific Committee of the International Ocean Colour Coordinating Group (IOCCG) and of the Steering Committee of the canadian network for optical remote sensing of aquatic environments (NETCOLOR), as well as Québec-Océan, Centre d’Études Nordiques and ArcticNET.  His research interests includes the improvement of ocean colour algorithms (e.g., atmospheric correction and bio-optical algorithms), quantification of photochemical processes occurring in the upper ocean (e.g., primary production and colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM) photochemistry), the optical characterization of CDOM and its dynamic from the rivers to the ocean.