About.

Deep Currents Collective is an international research and advocacy network of academics, lawyers, artists, and activists that promotes cultural participation in ocean and seabed governance. We envision international governance regimes that will engage the ocean and deep seabed together as an intrinsically relational world–one which humans and nonhumans alike depend for their physical and cultural wellbeing. Our Collective recognises the need for cultural and historical contexts in collective decision-making, open science, and transparent lawmaking. We emphasize the need for a fundamentally transdisciplinary approach to determining the future of the common heritage of all-kind. ​

Our Team

Dr Giulia Champion
​Giulia Champion is a Lecturer in Critical Ocean Studies at the University of Southampton, UK.
Her current research project, The Political Construction of the Seabed, investigates how the seabed is made and re-made in legal, financial, scientific, infrastructural and cultural documents and interventions as part of the creation of a regulatory framework for deep-sea mining, with a focus on the International Seabed Authority (ISA).  Giulia co-runs the Ocean Justice Special Interest Group funded by the Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute.  She has engaged with international and national policy on issues relating to ocean extraction and pollution, and by working closely with coastal and local communities.  In 2022, she was a Green Transition Fellow at the Greenhouse at the University of Stavanger and in 2021-2022, a collaborator on the Ecological Reparation Project.  She has volunteered for the International Commission of the History of Oceanography and is currently an Associate Editor for the transdisciplinary journal Environmental Humanities.  
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​Alejandro Limpo González
​Alejandro Limpo González is a Spanish anthropologist exploring the media politics of ocean sensing.  His research brings together media studies, environmental humanities, and Science and Technology Studies.
​He has investigated how platform-based forms of knowledge shape concepts of ocean space across science, policy, and business.  He obtained his PhD at the Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton (UK), in 2026 as part of the Intelligent Oceans research programme.  He is also a member of the Intersessional Working Group on Underwater Cultural Heritage of the International Seabed Authority.
Publications include: “Haunted Wire / Haunter Mineral,” Video Art (8 min, double screen), Ocean Matters Studio (Alejandro Limpo and Lilly Mc Craith). Commissioned by the Structures of Haunting workshop at the 38th edition of transmediale festival, (near) near but — far, Berlin, 2025; Limpo, Alejandro et al. “Fluid states of matter and meaning. Anarchiving the Oceanic.” Holotipus Journal. Special Issue Archiving the Anthropocene: New Taxonomies Between Art and Science, edited by Cristina Baldacci & Emiliano Guaraldo, 2024; “Ocean Sensing: Anthropological Reflections on a Field Trip to Studland Bay Marine Conservation Zone (MCZ).” Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute Blog, 2023; “Material Culture.” In the Glossary of Philosophy of Technology, edited by Agustin Berti, Diego Parente, and Claudio Celis. Buenos Aires: Editorial La Cebra, 2022; Surface tension. Clouds, waves, noise and other medial figures of maritime surveillance. kult-ur, 10 (20).

Dr Mekhala Dave
Mekhala Dave (she/her) is a Vienna-based lawyer and art scholar.
​She integrates legal practice with transdisciplinary research bridging art, law, and science.  She holds a PhD in Art History/Curatorial Studies from the University of Applied Arts Vienna, where her doctoral research explored decolonial ocean epistemologies through contemporary art and curatorial practice.  Building on this intersection, her expertise is in deep-sea mining and ocean governance, with participation at the International Seabed Authority and UN ocean-climate conferences.  Currently, she is a Research Associate at ASCOMARE, leading EU-projects on the blue economy in maritime law and policy.  Member of the Confluence of European Water Bodies, and the Deep Currents Collective.  Dave has published widely, presented internationally, and developed curatorial projects connecting research and practice through cross-sector collaboration.

​​Dr Susan Reid
​Susan Reid explores multibeing ontologies with a focus on human-ocean relationships, justice, and extractivism.
A cultural theorist, environmental philosopher, artist, and lawyer whose transdisciplinary work engages feminist and queer environmentalisms, contemporary arts, and science and technology studies.  Susan was awarded a postdoctoral research fellowship with UBC’s Faculty of Critical and Creative Studies for the project: Multibeing Seas: Agencies of Resistance and Care and is currently an International Visiting Fellow with the University of Southampton.  She produces the online advocacy and archive site oceanjustice.com.au and co-founded the online project Extracting the Ocean.  Affiliations with The FEEled Lab, Critical Minerals Network, and Sydney Environment Institute. 

Dr Jonathan Galka
​​Jonathan Galka is Assistant Professor of History of Science at KTH Stockholm, in the Centre for Excellence in Anthropocene History.
He earned his PhD in the History of Science from Harvard University in 2025.  His book project examining the 20th-century identification of deep-sea manganese nodules as scientific, political, and economic resources, queries how the construction of nodules as a mineral resource frontier imbricated the biological and geological sciences with Cold War and postcolonial ocean lawmaking, economics, and politics, and with diverse figurations of material abundance.  His historical and ethnographic work on oceanic resource frontiers appears or is forthcoming in Historical Studies of the Natural Sciences, Social Studies of Science, Environment and Planning E, and History & Philosophy of the Life Sciences.  Jonathan is working on a second project on the history and future of deep seawater commodification, with work from this research forthcoming in Global Intellectual History and Limn.

​​Khadija Stewart
​Khadija Stewart is a Caribbean ocean and climate specialist from Trinidad and Tobago.
She holds dual Master’s degrees in Climate Change and Development and Sustainable Environmental Development.  As the Founder of EcoVybz Environmental Creatives and EcoSeas Caribbean, she leads transformative initiatives such as Karibe Speak, Deep Sea Youth Symposium, and Thinking Beyond the Tides, using storytelling, art, and community-based advocacy to amplify Caribbean voices.  Khadija currently serves as the Senior Campaigner at RISE UP for the Ocean, where she advocates for equitable, justice-centred ocean protection at both regional and global levels.  She also produced The Anglerfish Chronicles, a radio series under TBA21–Academy, spotlighting deep ocean narratives through cultural and scientific lenses.  Her work bridges the gap between science, policy, and lived experience, ensuring that youth and frontline communities are central to sustainable ocean governance and climate action.