Maria Lourdes ‘Deng’ Palomares is a Senior Scientist and Project Manager of the Sea Around Us; Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada) and is one of the creators of SeaLifeBase. She is an alumna of the University of the Philippines with a PhD from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure Agronomique de Toulouse (France). Deng worked with the FishBase Project at the International Center for Living Aquatic Resources Management ICLARM, Manila, Philippines) for 10 years before joining the Sea Around Us team in 2001. She serves as Science Director for Quantitative Aquatics and is a member of its Board of Trustees.