Cornelia holds a PhD in fisheries science/marine ecology from Kiel University, Germany. She worked in FAO’s Fisheries Department, and, since 1986, in the development cooperation department and later in international science cooperation of the European Commission. Since 2010 she heads the international non-profit association Mundus maris – Sciences and Arts for Sustainability, registered in Belgium. Mundus maris seeks to combine scientific concepts with participatory research, arts and practice embedded in local, mixed and global cultural spaces in Africa, Europe and elsewhere. She is also chair of the Board of Trustees of the scientific non-profit Quantitative Aquatics, Inc., based in the Philippines. Q-quatics maintains and develops such global biodiversity databases as FishBase and SeaLifeBase. Her current research interests focus on sustainable small-scale fisheries (SSF) through the Small-Scale Fisheries Academy, including the essential gender dimension. She supports the implementation of the SSF Guidelines as part of the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN. She sees critically engaged science and arts as among the most promising approaches to support transitions for sustainable living, thus supporting active participation of citizens, private and civil society organizations as well as governments at various levels.