Alison Clausen joined UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission as a programme specialist in 2019 with over twenty years’ professional experience in program and project development and management in the areas of marine conservation, marine policy, and climate change adaptation. She is currently playing a lead role in the implementation of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development which was launched as a global, UN-led initiative to unite thousands of actors to co-design and co-deliver the science we need for the ocean we want. Before joining IOC she was based in Madagascar, where she worked throughout the Western Indian Ocean region, and prior to that she lived in Vietnam and worked throughout Southeast Asia.