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Chris has been with CCMI since 2004, when he helped set up the organisation as a Cayman Islands company. He joined the board of directors in 2010 and has held several positions in the organization, finally taking up the challenge of Chairman in 2015. Chris believes that education and awareness are a focal part of preserving the marine environment and that the Cayman Islands have one of the most spectacular reef systems in the world.

His real love is the research however – as this is the key to making a real difference and Chris has personally contributed to several pioneering research projects, including helping to establish the Coral Reef Early Warning System collaboration with NOAA. Chris is the managing director and partner of Stuarts Walker Hersant Humphries (SWHH), the boutique law firm based in Grand Cayman. SWHH have also supported CCMI through extensive funding initiatives over the years. Chris has been a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in London for more than 20 years and is a keen diver and underwater photographer.

Kate has worked with CCMI since 2009. She has an MSc in Sustainable Development and over 20 years experience as a marketing and communications professional. She is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Exeter, looking at youth, media, and ocean stewardship. Kate and her team manage the grant writing, donor management, fundraising, communications, and strategic advancement for CCMI – everything is done in house.

Kate took a sabbatical from her career in 2007 to work as a dive instructor in the Cayman Islands. This was her first move to immersing herself in the marine environment for a living and remains her passion today. Kate is determined that the general public is given the opportunity to have a better understanding of the marine environment via outreach and education from key research discoveries so they can protect it for the future.

Dr. Steve Gittings has a broad range of experience in conservation science, characterizing and monitoring marine ecosystems, assessing damage and recovery following ship groundings and oil spills, and applying science to management.  He has over 40 years of experience in scientific diving, ROV operations, and submersible use.

Dr. Gittings was inspired to become a marine scientist during a college field course in tropical ecology.  He received a B.S. in Biology at Westminster College in 1979, then M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Oceanography at Texas A&M University.  In graduate school, he studied the ecology of a natural brine seep, as well as biofouling ecology and the taxonomy and biogeography of barnacles.   He investigated the effects of brine discharges of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, produced a field guide to the barnacles of the Gulf of Mexico, and conducted investigative work for the National Transportation Safety Board.  He also helped characterize the reefs and banks of the northwestern Gulf of Mexico, and studied deep reefs in the northeastern Gulf.  His doctoral research was on the processes affecting recovery of coral reefs following extensive mechanical damage.

After graduate school, he established a monitoring program on two reefs in the Gulf of Mexico called the Flower Garden Banks that is still operating.  In a series of saturation missions on the undersea habitat Aquarius, he monitored changes in deep reefs habitats in the Florida Keys.  He became NOAA’s first manager of the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary in 1992.  In 1998, he became Chief Scientist for the National Marine Sanctuary System, and now works with scientists to better understand the ecosystems of the nation’s marine sanctuaries and marine national monuments, track changing conditions, and reduce human impacts that diminish environmental quality.

Dr. Gittings works in the U.S. and internationally in the Caribbean and Mediterranean on invasive lionfish response planning.  Recently, he has been developing traps designed to catch lionfish in waters beyond scuba depth.  The traps minimize by-catch, eliminate ghost-fishing, and could help fishermen provide a steady supply of lionfish to seafood and other developing markets, supplementing their income while protecting native ecosystems.

Once on the pathway to becoming a marine biologist, Peter Hillenbrand took a detour from becoming a scientist by deciding to own and operate the Southern Cross Club, the famous diving and fishing resort in Little Cayman, in 1995. Not long after, in 2002, Peter become involved with CCMI in its seminal years, helping to launch the ocean literacy programme and the fundraising campaign that resulted in a state of the art marine research facility (with sustainable bathrooms, one of Pete’s legacies!). He served as Chairman of CCMI for many of those years until 2015, when he took a break to focus on his Indiana business Walhill Farm, a 250 acre farm with  sustainable principles at its core,  providing the backdrop to a successful events business and restaurant. 

Pete was awarded the Lifetime achievement Award by the Cayman Islands Stingray Awards in 2016, for his contribution to tourism in the Cayman Islands. His passion and dedication to the environment has always been at the fore, via his own business endeavors, his unwavering support for important conservation and environmental projects in the Cayman Islands, like Grouper Moon and of course, his role at CCMI. 

Rob Hedges is on his second stint with CCMI – he is well remembered for his leadership and abilities as our Ops Director from 2011-2015. Joining us again in 2019 as the Business Manager and based in the UK, Rob oversees the financial, HR, and systems aspects of the company.

Rob has an academic background in coastal marine biology and over 10 years experience managing marine and tech operations. Previously, he was an ops and training manager at busy dive operation in Grand Cayman, and is also an IDC staff instructor. Rob combines a fantastic understanding of marine research in the field with the application of running a business. Rob therefore brings a wealth of experience to CCMI and will be responsible for keeping us compliant and up to date, as per the UK, US and Cayman Islands charity/non-profit regulations.

Dr Goodbody-Gringley is CCMI’s Director of Research, heading up CCMI’s Vision 2025 Reef Resilience and Restoration Research team. Previously, Dr Goodbody-Gringley was an Assistant Scientist at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS) where she led the Reef Ecology and Evolution Laboratory.

Dr Goodbody-Gringley’s research focuses on population structure, reproductive ecology, and genetic connectivity of a variety of organisms that inhabit tropical coral reef ecosystems ranging from inshore shallow reefs down to the mesophotic zone, with the goal of understanding how ecosystems function in order to maintain biodiversity. To address questions related to reef health, evolution, resilience, and recovery, she combines large-scale in situ ecological surveys, small-scale laboratory experiments, and molecular ecology. Dr Goodbody-Gringley’s current projects include a collaboration with A. Trembanis from the University of Delaware using autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) in combination with technical diving to map deep reef systems and couple the physical environment with biological communities. She is also working with H. Putnam from the University of Rhode Island and J. Bruno from the University of North Carolina to determine thermal tolerances of corals to climate change and the capacity for corals to adapt over a single generation. In 2019, she traveled to Israel to work with T. Mass from Haifa University to explore how patterns of development differ between corals on shallow and deep reefs in the Red Sea.

Gretchen completed her BSc at the University of Georgia and her Ph.D. at Harvard University in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. She then held postdoctoral positions at Mote Marine Laboratory and University of Bologna, Italy. Gretchen has a broad background in benthic marine ecology and is particularly interested in the evolution of life history strategies and how that in turn serves to structure population dynamics and maintain genetic diversity.

JS, originally from South Africa, moved to the Cayman Islands in 2007 and immediately fell in love with the Islands and the pristine oceans surrounding his “new” paradise home.  JS joined the board of CCMI in November 2017 following the introduction though mutual personal and professional contacts. It was an easy decision for JS to take on the challenge and join the CCMI board considering his passion for conservation and his love of the Caribbean Islands and surrounding ocean waters, reefs and life.

Since JS’s move to the Cayman Islands JS has been involved in a range of on-island nonprofit organization through fundraising activities and active board level involvement. JS’s background in financial services and specifically in the accounting and investment field and his management of an extensive portfolio of financial industry clients including investment companies, financial management companies, captive insurance/reinsurance companies, non-profit organisations and general commercial activities puts him in a good position to add valuable in put to the financial controls and management of CCMI.

Tim is a business professional with more than 30 years of experience in consulting and corporate operations (HR, Finance, IT) spanning multiple industries and companies including private, public, and non-profit organisations. He served as the VP of Finance and Administration for a Canadian-based energy company operating in Canada and the United States. Additional roles include Director of HR Operations, Global Director of HR, as well as the VP of HR in two India-based acquisitions.

Tim has volunteered on numerous non-profit boards and he has been involved with CCMI since 2007, when he first participated in the “Dive With a Researcher” programme. Tim has served as an advisor to CCMI for many years now, including developing several educational modules and is a volunteer instructor and counsellor for Sea Camp. Tim accepted the position as Treasurer in 2015 and continues to volunteer on education courses.

Born and raised in New Bedford, Massachusetts, the ocean has always been an important part of Matthew’s life. New Bedford was once the world’s largest whaling port, and it is now America’s largest commercial fishing port, so naturally, Matthew grew up working in the commercial fishing industry before going to college.

After graduating from Yale Medical School and completing his residency in neurosurgery at the University of Pennsylvania, Matthew returned to New Bedford to serve his community as a neurosurgeon. He is currently the founding director of the Southcoast Brain and Spine Center, the only truly integrated clinical neuroscience center in New England, that provides comprehensive and multispecialty care to those with brain and spine disease.

In 24 years back in New Bedford, Matthew has also resumed commercial, recreational, and big game tournament fishing. Closely intertwined with his passion for fishing is his interest and active participation in sustainability and pelagic ecosystem preservation.

In 2012 Simon retired as Partner of KPMG in the Cayman Islands. During his tenure with KPMG, Simon was Head of Advisory Services for the Cayman Islands and Head of Insolvency for KPMG Americas. He has previously served as a Trustee of the Chamber Pension Plan, Council Member of the Cayman Islands Society of Professional Accountants, and Head of the Insolvency Sub-Committee. Simon is currently a member of the Anti Corruption Commission. During his career Simon stood as a Court appointed officer on numerous occasions.

When Simon retired from KPMG he served as a board member of CCMI from 2012 to 2017, but he stepped back from this role to focus on his commitments as an angel investor. He remains an active investor in a number of companies including Gravity Fitness Limited, an active entertainment company operating in the UK, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Mauritius, and Malta. He is also a board director of Jacques Scott Group. Simon was born in Kenya and has lived in the Cayman islands since 1990 and loves everything to do with the water. He is a keen sailor, diver and fisherman. He is married with two grown up children.

Carrie founded CCMI in 1998 and developed the organisation with a strong focus on protecting the biodiversity of coral reefs through research, education and conservation. As a professor of oceanography, Carrie has dedicated over 20 years to marine research in the Cayman Islands.

Carrie is an oceanographer and in 2016 was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship for work on the effects of rising sea level on coastal communities in the Indian Ocean. She established CCMI in 1998 and developed the Little Cayman Research Centre with a vision to advance the frontiers of coral reef science, conservation and education. Her Ph.D. in Marine Geology and Geophysics is from the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. As CCMI’s founder, her deep-rooted curiosity is in the extinction risks of modern corals and she is concerned about the influence reef degradation has on coastal communities. She has partnered with collaborators from all over the world who work on topics including impacts of ocean acidification and climate change on corals, algae, and fish.

In an effort to bring attention to threats to reefs, she organized the 2016 symposium in London to “Rethink the Future for Coral Reefs’ with CCMI’s royal patron, His Royal Highness The Earl of Wessex. She contributed to the United Nations Chronicle, writing on the Sustainable Development Goals for the ocean and served as a member of the UN World Commission on Marine Protected Areas. As an educator, her greatest aspiration is for children to be ocean literate and she is invested in supporting early career scientists, especially in bringing science to society and in engaging women in science.

His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh has been the patron of CCMI since 2003, and was present at the groundbreaking of the Little Cayman Research Centre. At that time, His Royal Highness heralded a dedication that remains today: to sustain the biodiversity of coral reefs so that children of the world may forever discover the treasures of the sea.

On a subsequent visit in 2007, he launched the Ocean Literacy programme, the mandate of which is to ensure that “every child in the Cayman Islands is ocean literate by the time they are 12 years old.” To date, some 1,000 children in the Cayman Islands have participated in the CCMI residential programmes. In his 2007 message, His Royal Highness said “As Patron, I am delighted to support the CCMI’s vision and plans for the creation of the Little Cayman Research Centre as a permanent field station for marine research and education. If it helps just a few of us to understand and appreciate the most important issues facing coral reefs today it may well benefit future generations. As the plaque on the beach at Bloody Bay states, “For the children of the world, so they may forever discover the treasures of the sea.”

His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh has visited the research centre on five different occasions, including a visit in 2016 where he was accompanied by his wife. Most recently, he spent time in Little Cayman in February 2023, where he launched the Coral Fund to support the construction of a new facility for CCMI. Each year, His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh holds a dinner for CCMI to communicate the current research themes to an intimate group of supporters, and further the organisation’s mission.