Institut de Recherche pour le Développement

Rodolphe Devillers is Senior research scientist (Directeur de Recherche) at the French national research Institute for Sustainable Development IRD. He holds a joint PhD in Geomatics Sciences from Laval University, Canada and in Geographic Information Sciences from Paris East University, France. Devillers joined IRD after a 14-year academic career as Professor of Geography at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada. He specializes in geographic information sciences in support of ocean management and conservation. His research focus includes marine protected areas (MPAs) design and effectiveness, trade-offs in marine conservation, marine habitat mapping, and small-scale fisheries. He published over 60 peer-review journal articles and over 250 other communications in the fields of geomatics, geography, ecology, geology, computer sciences and engineering. He is Associate Editor of the international academic journals “Marine Geodesy” (Taylor and Francis) and “Geomatica” (CSP).

Email: rodolphe.devillers@ird.fr

Rachel Bitoun, graduated in Political Sciences (University of Rennes II, France) and Geography (University of Paul-Valéry, France) is a coastal geographer interested in the interactions between social-ecosystems and coastal environments, in particular tropical ecosystems. Borrowing concepts to various disciplinary fields, she uses a combination of tools from GIS, Geomorphology or applied statistics to propose unifying methods of the Humanities and Natural Sciences. Her recent work focused more specifically on mangrove restoration and the influence of community involvement in climate change adaptation. She’s previously been involved in the Initiative Mangrove Project carried out by the French Fund for the Global Environment to assess restoration performance, and in STOREM (Sustainable Tourism, Optimal Resouce and Environmental Management) ERASMUS+ Project which aims to promote Capacity Building in higher education in the field of coastal sustainable tourism in the Greater Caribbean. Currently, she works at the French Institute for Development where she is dedicated to the MOVE-ON project.  
Email: rachel.bitoun@ird.fr
Alternative email: bitoun.rachel@hotmail.fr